VISUAL SYMPTOMS AFTER OPTIC NEURITIS - RESULTS FROM THE OPTIC NEURITIS TREATMENT TRIAL

As part of the Optic Neuritis Treatment Trial, vision-specific quality -of-life data were collected on the patients at their 6-month visits. The purpose of this study was to determine the types of visual tasks i n day-to-day living in which patients have difficulty and to compare t he patients' subjective assessment of visual impairment with measureme nts of visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, mean deviation, and color vision. The questionnaire was completed by 382 (87%) of the 438 patien ts who had 6-month study visits. Associations between ophthalmic test scores and self-reported vision were examined using both a summary pro blem index and selected individual items. Although a substantial perce ntage of the patients (63%) indicated that vision had not recovered to normal in the affected eye, the reported visual deficits generally we re mild. For most of the visual tasks of daily living, patients report ed little or no problem. Among the 215 patients who perceived their vi sion at 6 months to be somewhat or much worse than it was before optic neuritis, 20% had normal results on none of the four visual function tests, 14% had normal results on one of the four tests, 23% had two of four, 23% had three of four, and 20% had normal results on all four. Reported visual symptoms 6 months after optic neuritis generally were mild. When patients were symptomatic, the four visual function tests o ften did not detect abnormality. This finding supports previous report s that visual deficits are frequently perceived even when vision testi ng is normal.