Stroke and vision

Abstract

The ability to see and interpret the visual world is perhaps the most valued of the human senses and is likely to be impaired by brain disease. This means that any form of brain damage, such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, tumours or neurological diseases can affect the visual function. Stroke is the most common acquired cause of neurological impairment in the adult population. More than 60% of all stroke survivors experience a vision problem after stroke (Rowe et al., 2019). Stroke is the second most common cause of death and disability worldwide, including the Scandinavian countries. Worldwide, there are over 12 million stroke incidents per year and a prevalence of 101 million cases (Feigin et al., 2021). This editorial provides the authors’ view on the challenges of vision rehabilitation after stroke from a Norwegian perspective in a global context. In Norway and other Scandinavian countries there are still challenges in ensuring all stroke survivors get their vision assessed and individuals with vision impairment are referred to relevant vision rehabilitation.