The following was posted on sci.med.vision; perhaps someone here
can help answer this?
Regards,
Geertje
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olehippies wrote:
>> My 10-year old daughter is cortically visually impaired due to an anoxic
> event at 6 months of age (near-miss SIDS vs. encephalitis). Her brain
> has "rewired" greatly (she's been a patient of Creig Hoyt at UCSF who
> is, I understand, the guru of CVI in the States). Suddenly her
> ophthalmologist says her optic nerve is degenerating. I was under the
> impression that the optic nerve has nothing to do with CVI...is this a
> secondary problem or what? She also has a wandering eye (lazy eye??)
> which the doc says we won't attempt to treat at this point. And about
> six months ago, he prescribed glasses due to an unrelated (I think)
> myopia in one eye (NOT the "lazy" eye -- the lens on that side is
> clear).
>> She's been doing so well that I admit I've been remiss in keeping up
> with what's been going on in the field lately. Is this all within the
> usual realm of CVI? Why is her optic nerve degenerating? Is there
> anything we can do to minimize this? Does this mean her vision might
> get worse with time? We've been very lucky, as it's my understanding
> that most kids with CVI also have CP -- she has some extremely minor
> muscle tone problem but not enough to hinder her in any way, except some
> slight fine motor control in her hands/wrists/fingers. She is very
> slightly developmentally delayed. Again, we consider ourselves
> extremely lucky.
>> We've recently moved out of county and her prior IEPs have included
> Orientation and Mobility with the use of a cane. I don't feel she needs
> to be cane-oriented at all -- I feel she should be taught to use what
> vision she has (which is quite a lot, actually -- she can sees stars in
> the night sky). But perhaps they know something I haven't been aware of
> ...will the optic nerve degeneration necessarily lead to worsening of
> her vision? Again, she's only 10 but we have to make plans for her
> future.
>> Thanks,
>> fw
