Where these falls happen
Slip-and-fall injuries in the Houston area come from the everyday places where a floor is briefly unsafe: grocery store aisles after a spill, restaurant tile between the kitchen and the dining room, apartment stairwells with worn tread, retail entrances during a rainstorm, hospital and clinic hallways, hotel bathrooms, gas station lots with unmarked height changes. The setting varies. The mechanism — a body caught mid-stride and then arrested by the ground — is remarkably consistent.
Why head impact disrupts eye teaming
When the head hits, the brain accelerates and decelerates inside the skull. The cranial nerves that carry eye-movement commands and the brainstem pathways that coordinate them are among the most vulnerable structures to that kind of shear force. The result, in daily life, is that near work becomes harder, screens become tiring, driving at night feels wrong, and reading pulls apart on the page.
None of this shows on a routine acuity chart. A patient can read the 20/20 line and still have measurable, reproducible dysfunction in how the two eyes work together.
Symptoms after a fall
- Blurred vision that appears with sustained reading or screen use.
- Dizziness or unsteadiness when scanning a room or turning the head quickly.
- Double vision — often intermittent, worse when tired.
- Headaches that concentrate behind the eyes or across the forehead.
- Light sensitivity to overhead lighting, sunlight, and glare.
- Difficulty reading, losing the place on the page, re-reading the same line.
The 5-test objective assessment
The workup is a five-test oculomotor battery: smooth pursuit, saccades, fixation stability, convergence, and vergence speed. It is a standardized oculomotor battery administered under direct clinical supervision as part of a comprehensive neuro-optometric evaluation at our Houston office. Every measurement is compared against a published clinical reference range and recorded verbatim in the report.
What the signed report contains
The report is signed by Dr. Rizwan Jaffer, O.D., Texas License #7014TG, and includes the recorded values for each of the five tests, the reference range for each value, a test validity analysis, and a clinical impression to a reasonable degree of optometric certainty. Functional implications are described in plain language: what the measurements mean for reading, screen work, walking on uneven surfaces, and driving.
The report documents visual function at the date of assessment. It does not opine on liability, causation beyond what the measurements support, or treatment outcomes.
Who this is for
Adults who have fallen and struck the head — whether in a store, a workplace, a rental property, or a public facility — and who have new visual symptoms since. Timing does not disqualify: an assessment done weeks or months after the fall still documents the current state and can be re-run at 12 weeks for comparison.
Related: Forensic Vision overview · For personal injury attorneys
Ready for objective documentation? A standardized oculomotor battery administered under direct clinical supervision as part of a comprehensive neuro-optometric evaluation produces a signed report you can share with your attorney.
Schedule Your Vision AssessmentFrequently Asked Questions
Do I need to have lost consciousness for a fall to affect my vision?
No. Post-fall oculomotor dysfunction is regularly measured in patients who never lost consciousness. The mechanism is the sudden force delivered to the head and neck, not the level of awareness afterward.
The ER said my scan was normal. Is this different?
Yes. CT and MRI look at the structure of the brain. This assessment measures how the two eyes move, aim, and coordinate — brain-driven functions that can be disrupted without a structural finding on imaging.
Can this be used for a premises liability case?
The written report provides objective, timestamped clinical documentation. Whether and how it is used in a premises case is a decision for your attorney and the case itself; we provide the measurements and the signed clinical impression.