Concussion – Vertical Tracking Smooth Pursuit Exercise With Pencil

Hi, this is Dana Rahana from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy. Today I want to show you an exercise for tracking your vision.

We tend to see vision issues associated with neck, whiplash, or concussion type injuries. Sometimes our eyes have a hard time following objects in space.

To do this exercise:

• Grab an object like a pencil (you can use your thumb, if you prefer).
• Hold it about arms length in front of you while maintaining a good posture through your neck
• We want you to be able to focus on the pencil and not have it blurry
• We’re going to work on raising and lowering the pencil about a foot above and a foot below your eyes

As long as you can do this without symptoms, then try to track the movement.

Work on individual eye strength

• Cover one eye and do 5-10 repetitions
• Switch to the opposite eye for 5-10 repetitions
• Then do both eyes together. Up and down for 5-10 repetitions, trying to keep your head steady in space.

If you have any symptoms with this, please stop.

Sometimes we’ll get eye fatigue, which will improve as you do this exercise. But if you’re having headaches or other symptoms, then stop and have your practitioner re-evaluate for you.