In another task, the physician hold his two index fingers apart and has the patients move their eyes from finger to finger while holding their heads still.
“I’m not that interested in whether they’re catching the tips of fingers, I’m interested in if they can go fast, and can they go faster if I challenge them, or do they stop doing it? When people with ocular vestibular dysfunction start doing this task, they’re going to slow down. They can’t keep it up because it’s so unpleasant. It really bothers them a lot,” Dr. Dorshimer observed.
In his experience, another key element in a smooth and successful recovery from sports concussions, in addition to getting skilled help for vestibular/oculomotor impairment, if present, is to encourage a positive attitude.
“If you think you’re going to get CTE [chronic traumatic encephalopathy] when you get older because you got waffled a bit in sport, that’s just such a negative attitude. I mean, you can’t lie to them: We don’t know. But I take care of a ton of retired athletes who don’t have CTE. Maybe they’re going to have some tangles in their brains, but they don’t have it clinically. So you want them to keep a positive attitude,” he emphasized.