The Effectiveness of Visual Evoked Potentials in Disability Evaluation.

Park, Myung Jin; Lim, Sang Hyun; Lee, Sung Jin; Park, Song Hee

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Ophthalmological Society 2006;47(2):283-291.
Published online February 28, 2006.

The Effectiveness of Visual Evoked Potentials in Disability Evaluation.

Myung Jin Park, Sang Hyun Lim, Sung Jin Lee, Song Hee Park

Department of Ophthalmology, Soonchunhyang University, College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. parksonghee55@hanmail.net

신체장해평가 환자에서 시유발전위 검사의 유용성

박명진,임상현,이성진,박성희

Department of Ophthalmology, Soonchunhyang University, College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Correspondence: Myung Jin Park, M.D.

Abstract

PURPOSE
This study aimed to find out whether the pattern and flash visual evoked potentials (VEP) is useful as methods to examine functional visual loss (FVL) among patients complaining of decreased visual acuity after trauma. METHODS: The medical records of trauma-related patients entrusted to the department of ophthalmology for evaluation from January 2001 to October 2004 were reviewed, Correlation were then analyzed by comparing visual acuity, visual field, and visual evoked potentials. RESULTS: There were 45 subjects, 23 of whom complained of symptoms including decreased visual acuity or visual field constriction in one eye. However no abnormalities were found in ophthalmologic tests, and pattern of flash visual evoked potentials were found to be normal for their eyes. Therefore, the cases were diagnosed with functional visual loss. Among the 23 cases, 4 showed abnormal results in the pattern visual evoked potentials, but findings for the eyes in terms of flash visual evoked potentials were normal, so these were also diagnosed with functional visual loss. CONCLUSIONS: With visual evoked potentials only, one cannot diagnosed functional visual loss, but, it could be employed usefully as complementary test in the examination of patients for whom functional visual loss is doubted clinically.

Key Words: Disability evaluation;Functional visual loss;Visual evoked potential