Stroboscopic visual training: The potential for clinical application in neurological populations

Julia Das; Richard Walker; Gill Barry; Rodrigo Vitório; Samuel Stuart; Rosie Morris

doi:10.1371/journal.pdig.0000335

Stroboscopic visual training: The potential for clinical application in neurological populations

PLOS Digit Health. 2023 Aug 23;2(8):e0000335. doi: 10.1371/journal.pdig.0000335. eCollection 2023 Aug.

Authors

Julia Das^{1

2}, Richard Walker², Gill Barry¹, Rodrigo Vitório¹, Samuel Stuart^{1

2}, Rosie Morris^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Sport, Exercise & Rehabilitation, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.
² Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, North Tyneside General Hospital, North Shields, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Visual problems are common in people who have neurological injury or disease, with deficits linked to postural control and gait impairment. Vision therapy could be a useful intervention for visual impairment in various neurological conditions such as stroke, head injury, or Parkinson's disease. Stroboscopic visual training (SVT) has been shown to improve aspects of visuomotor and cognitive performance in healthy populations, but approaches vary with respect to testing protocols, populations, and outcomes. The purpose of this structured review was to examine the use of strobe glasses as a training intervention to inform the development of robust protocols for use in clinical practice. Within this review, any studies using strobe glasses as a training intervention with visual or motor performance-related outcomes was considered. PubMed, Scopus, and ProQuest databases were searched in January 2023. Two independent reviewers (JD and RM) screened articles that used strobe glasses as a training tool. A total of 33 full text articles were screened, and 15 met inclusion/exclusion criteria. Reported outcomes of SVT included improvements in short-term memory, attention, and visual response times, with emerging evidence for training effects translating to balance and physical performance. However, the lack of standardisation across studies for SVT protocols, variation in intervention settings, duration and outcomes, and the limited evidence within clinical populations demonstrates that further work is required to determine optimal strobe dosage and delivery. This review highlights the potential benefits, and existing research gaps regarding the use of SVT in clinical practice, with recommendations for clinicians considering adopting this technology as part of future studies in this emerging field.

Copyright: © 2023 Das et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This work forms part of a PhD study being undertaken by JD and has been funded by a Northumbria University PhD studentship in collaboration with Senaptec Inc. (Beaverton, Oregon, USA) (PIs: RM and SS). This work was also supported by a British Geriatric Society Movement Disorder Research Grant (PI: SS). SS (co-author) is supported, in part, by a Parkinson’s Foundation Post-doctoral Fellowship for Basic Scientists (PF-FBS-1898-18-21) and a Clinical Research Award (PF-CRA-2073). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.