eprintid: 1514493 rev_number: 38 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/01/51/44/93 datestamp: 2017-04-25 14:43:20 lastmod: 2022-01-12 23:48:15 status_changed: 2017-04-25 14:43:20 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Woodhead, ZVJ creators_name: Ong, YH creators_name: Leff, AP title: Web-based therapy for hemianopic alexia is syndrome-specific ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B02 divisions: C07 divisions: D07 divisions: F82 note: © 2015, BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved. This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. abstract: Rehabilitation studies rarely test the specificity of an intervention by using a control group who are matched to the therapy group in terms of baseline impairment, but who do not have the same causative syndrome. In this study, we tested the specificity of an eye movement therapy for a common, acquired reading disorder called hemianopic alexia, by comparing hemianopic participants with slow text reading, to age and reading speed matched controls without hemianopia. The study was carried out using an online therapy programme called ‘Read-Right’ that contains validated tests of the visual field and text reading speed, as well as an eye movement therapy: laterally scrolling text. 201 self-selected participants completed at least 5 h of online therapy. After excluding those with reading speeds incompatible with hemianopic alexia and those with bilateral abnormalities on their visual field test, we were left with 105 who were then classified into one of three groups depending on their visual field: (1) right-sided hemianopia (n=47); (2) left-sided hemianopia (n=36); (3) no hemianopia (n=22, control group). The three groups did not differ in terms of baseline text reading speed, but they were all significantly slower than expected based on normative data from the same age range. A repeated-measures analysis of variance showed a significant therapy by group interaction (p=0.039). Post hoc, paired t tests revealed that this was driven by reading speed improvements for the right-sided and left-sided hemianopic alexic groups but not the controls. This result demonstrates that a clinically validated therapy for hemianopic alexia improves text reading speed in hemianopic patients but not in participants matched for slow text reading but without hemianopia. This adds weight to the hypothesis that eye movement therapies are syndrome-specific. It also demonstrates an advantage of using web-based vehicles to deliver syndrome-specific therapies that can be accessed by patients worldwide. date: 2015-07-01 date_type: published official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjinnov-2015-000041 oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1057279 doi: 10.1136/bmjinnov-2015-000041 lyricists_name: Leff, Alexander lyricists_name: Woodhead, Zoe lyricists_id: APLEF35 lyricists_id: ZWOOD09 actors_name: Woodhead, Zoe actors_id: ZWOOD09 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: BMJ Innovations volume: 1 number: 3 pagerange: 88-95 issn: 2055-642X citation: Woodhead, ZVJ; Ong, YH; Leff, AP; (2015) Web-based therapy for hemianopic alexia is syndrome-specific. BMJ Innovations , 1 (3) pp. 88-95. 10.1136/bmjinnov-2015-000041 <https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjinnov-2015-000041>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1514493/1/Woodhead_RR_3Groups_v5.pdf