10 exercises to treat spatial neglect on a tablet or smartboard
Spatial neglect is one of the most frequent consequences of stroke. Patients are unable to pay attention to stimuli presented to the region contralateral to the damaged hemisphere. Due to its etiology, neglect is mostly left-sided. It is necessary for professionals to know exercises to treat spatial neglect both with real stimuli and technology such as tablet, digital whiteboards or virtual reality.
Examples for the use of tablets for spatial neglect.
1. Rotate your screen and use apps that you already own
Sometimes it’s as easy as using existing apps on your tablet to further encourage the left side. Read articles, train visual tracking by searching for a specific app in the apps section, search for a photo in the gallery, etc. Many everyday apps have their menu and options on the left side. You can train the left side by asking your patient to look for something in these menu options.
2. The tablet, the further to the left, the better.
If you have patients with very severe hemineglect, it is advisable to start working on it by placing the stimuli and the tablet close to the mid line of their field of view. However, as the patient progresses in therapy, the key is to move the device more and more to the left side, thus gradually increasing the visual field and training tracking To further increase the field of view, you can make use of a digital whiteboard.
3. Digital spot the difference
Use apps and games to spot difference between two images. When used on a digital device, these types of games have a great variety of images and direct feedback on errors.
Use a cognitive training software or app with exercises to treat spatial neglect.
There are cognitive training apps and software that offer exercises to treat spatial neglect on tablets. Rehametrics offers a wide variety of exercises that can be used with spatial neglect patients. Any exercise that forces the patient to do a visual search on the left to complete the task, may be used to rehabilitate the left visual field. Rehametrics also has specific protocols for spatial neglect.
Protocol with exercises to treat spatial neglect
4. Inhibition exercise
5. Sequencing exercise
6. Word-image association exercise
7. Visual tracking and attention
8. Divided attention
9. Attention exercise
10. Attention exercise
Using these tips and exercises, along with more traditional therapy techniques, we will have a better chance of success in treating hemineglect. Likewise, spatial neglect can be treated with other types of technology like inmersive reality or treatment with VR glasses.
