Award Date

May 2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Occupational Therapy Doctorate

Department

Brain Health

First Committee Member

Donnamarie Krause

Second Committee Member

Jefferson Kinney

Number of Pages

86

Abstract

Vision impairments have a high prevalence in adults with a stroke or traumatic brain injury (TBI), potentially affecting up to 90% of this population. However, these impairments are often overlooked during the rehabilitation process due to a lack of education and training provided to occupational therapists (OTs). Limited research also contributes to no standardized best practice guidelines for OTs to follow (Aravich & Troxell., 2021). This issue is important to occupational therapy practitioners because vision impairments negatively affect a person's capacity for recovery, quality of life, safety, and mental health (Berger et al., 2016). Occupational therapists aim to utilize holistic approaches to treatment, but this cannot be done without addressing vision. This quality improvement project was designed to provide OTs with an evidence-based protocol that will improve their ability to address vision impairments and meet the needs of their clients. Six participants were included in this study, and they consisted of two OTs, two COTAs, one OT student, and one COTA student. A pre-test and post-test survey was given to the participants to measure their knowledge and confidence in addressing vision, using the modified EPIC scale. Data analysis indicate a statistically significant improvement in the mean scores of the pre-test (62.87) and post-test (78.48) surveys with a p value of <0.001. As the results supports existing literature, this project concludes that a vision protocol can help improve the self-perceived confidence of OTs in addressing vision for individuals post-stroke or TBI.

Keywords

brain injury; Occupational therapy; vision protocol

Disciplines

Occupational Therapy

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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