Visual Perception and Spatial Difficulties

• In this section:
• MS and visual perception
• Difficulties
• Strategies to help

MS and visual perception

MS can affect the speed at which visual information is processed. Sometimes it can be difficult for people with MS to make sense of what they see, or when they see an item it might not appear as they expected.

"I hate driving to new places because I always get lost"

Difficulties may be experienced with:

• Angle matching (judging angles and shapes eg door widths, edges of tables)
• Face recognition
• Misjudging depth and distance - eg walking into things
• Getting lost whilst driving, even when familiar with a place (this may also be due to memory problems)
• Becoming confused over right and left
• Having trouble assembling things from diagrams or written instructions
• Having difficulty visualising objects from a verbal description

Strategies to help

Change your environment

• Reduce clutter
• Keep things in set places

If you keep walking into doors:

Put tram lines of tape on the floor to walk between

If you find you are forgetting passages

...or missing the ends of sentences when reading, use a piece of paper to cover the text and guide your reading

Increase contrast

• Use dark objects on white backgrounds or vice-versa
• Use coloured tape on sharp corners

Scanning

Scanning is moving the head and eyes to search for a target.

For example:

An example of scanning is when we walk down the street while searching for a house address. We move our head towards the buildings and search with our eyes around the doors to locate the number and then read it. In an environment where you might find you are bumping into things or mis-judging a visual preview of the environment will enable you to anticipate the presence of objects, which can result in fewer mobility-related incidents, such as tripping, bumping, etc.

Use written and visual cues

A written cue is a note you write to yourself to remind you of something - a shopping list is a familiar example of this.

A visual cue could be a coloured tag in a book to remind you where you got up to.

A combination of a written and visual cue would be a brightly coloured sticker on the fridge reminding you to ‘Buy some flowers’.