🧠 Visual Cueing [Neurosurgery Wiki]

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====== 🧠 Visual Cueing ======

**Visual cueing** refers to the use of **external visual stimuli** to assist or modify motor actions, especially gait, in patients with neurological disorders such as [[freezing_of_gait|freezing of gait]].

===== 🎯 Purpose =====
Visual cues aim to:
  * Trigger or maintain gait initiation.
  * Improve stride length and rhythm.
  * Bypass defective internal motor circuits (e.g., basal ganglia loops).
  * Reduce episodes of freezing or akinesia.

===== 🧩 Examples =====
  * **Laser lines** from shoes or canes to step over.
  * **Colored tape** strips placed on the floor at intervals.
  * **Tiled floors or lines on pavement** used as natural environmental guides.
  * **AR/VR systems** for training with dynamic visual stimuli.

===== 🧠 Mechanism =====
Visual stimuli engage alternative motor pathways (parietal–premotor–cerebellar), bypassing impaired [[neuroanatomy:basal_ganglia|basal ganglia–SMA]] loops.
This allows compensation in diseases such as [[parkinson_disease|Parkinson’s disease]], [[Wilson’s disease]], and [[nph|normal pressure hydrocephalus]].

===== 🧪 Clinical Use =====
Primarily studied in [[parkinson_disease|Parkinson’s disease]], visual cueing has also shown benefit in:
  * [[wilson_disease|Wilson’s disease]]
  * Atypical parkinsonism
  * Post-stroke gait disturbances
  * [[nph|Normal pressure hydrocephalus]]

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See also: [[freezing_of_gait]], [[wilson_disease]], [[nph]], [[rehabilitation:gait_training]]