Su’a Cravens’s concussion two games ago probably did not permanently alter his vision and force him into a lifetime of wearing glasses. The Washington Redskins rookie linebacker may have jumped to conclusions by claiming that last week.
But Cravens wasn’t far off, says one expert. And he appears to have gone against the norm of most athletes who don’t, or can’t, acknowledge that the brain trauma they've suffered has affected their eyesight.
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“A lot of people don’t have the vocabulary to clearly express how they’re feeling. They just say, ‘I’m not feeling right,’” said Dr. Eric Singman, chief of general eye service at Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Wilmer Eye Institute. Singman, a specialist in neuro-opthalmology, has published several studies on the effects of concussions on vision and their treatment — including athletes of all ages.
Athletes in general, especially in football, are notorious for hiding concussion symptoms, Singman said. But an inability to describe exactly what’s wrong with their sight compounds that, and a neurologist is more likely to diagnose it than an eye doctor.
“A lot of them basically get around the visual problem, by either bypassing it or working around it,’’ he added, pointing out that athletes are not alone in doing so. They find that they lose their place while reading, get headaches, are unable to scroll on their computers or mobile devices, can’t be in rooms with any normal level of light, and get nauseous in moving cars. Their solution: they avoid all of these things.
The best example of a well-known concussion victim needed glasses is Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was injured in a fall in late 2012 and wore glasses for a time afterward. The most notable current athlete in that situation is Dale Earnhardt Jr., who announced last month that he would sit out the rest of the NASCAR season after his head injuries over the summer.
When he and concussion specialist Dr. Micky Collins spoke about his progress at Darlington Raceway, Earnhardt wore glasses, and Collins told reporters that two of the types of concussion they were treating him for involved his vision. Collins hinted at how those problems were affecting his off-track quality of life: “When I first saw Dale, my goal was to see Dale become a human being again.’’
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Singman knows that well: he described seeing high-school athletes suddenly performing poorly in class because they’re unable to concentrate on reading after a concussion. When he’s able to diagnose the problem in a patient and put a name to it, he said, “they get excited … I’m able to reproduce the feeling they have that they can’t express.’’
The brain trauma, basically, affects how the eyes focus, how they work in concert with each other, alter depth and distance perception and wreak havoc on balance and equilibrium. And one of the treatments for those symptoms, Singman said, is prescription glasses — which likely do not have to be worn for life, as Cravens believed, but could be needed for several months.
That, in turn, serves as a reminder that a concussion’s after-effects can last far longer than the week or two that players often sit out before returning to action. Cravens was hurt in Washington’s win over the Browns and missed the next two games; his status for Sunday’s game in Detroit is still up in the air.
“If you give a player glasses, it’s usually a temporary thing,’’ Singman said, and they would be used in conjunction with exercises to “help the eyes to work better as a team.’’
In other words, he said, Cravens’ post-concussion glasses were “very, very common.’’
Not as common, though, is Cravens talking about how he felt publicly. More often, Singman said of concussed athletes with vision difficulties, “a lot of them are living a life of pain and silence.’’