A Review of "Visual Attention TherAppy" app by Tactus Therapy

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Recently, I have had a significant increase in my patients post stroke or TBI that have visual attention deficits. One app that I have enjoyed using and hope to purchase is the "Visual Attention TherAppy" app by Tactus Therapy. This is a visual scanning task where the patient has a specified target they must identify by scanning left to right through multiple lines.
This app offers two major features, an assessment feature and a practice/therapy feature. The task of the patient/student is to visually attend to one or two targets presented. The patient must scan from left to right and line-by-line. If a symbol is missed a tone will sound on the iPad to alert the patient that they must go back and re-scan. Below is a picture of a two trial task.

As you can all see I have the Lite version. The full version currently costs $9.99. The benefit of the Lite version includes: the option of 1 or two targets to attend to, a signal that can bring attention to either left or right side neglect, the settings options, and the ability to e-mail results with results already computed. You also have a variety of letters each time you re-open the app.

The benefits of the full version includes: the 10 different levels - Same Symbol, Same Letter, Symbol in Letters, Letter in Symbols, Symbol in Symbols & Letters, Dissimilar Symbols, Similar Symbols, Dissimilar Letters, and Similar Letters. You also have all of the aforementioned features in the Lite version.

Here are a few more pictures featuring the settings options, the signal bar, and a sample e-mail that can be sent.




I like to push my patients by adding in background noise, the task of attending to conversation as well, or performing a second task simultaneously. I very much enjoy using this app as apart of my therapy, when I free up more data on my iPad I hope to purchase it!


What apps or activities do you use for your patients with visual attention deficits?



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