Role of Sport Vision in Performance: Systematic Review
Abstract: Sport Vision is a speciality of multidisciplinary interest aimed at improving the performance
of the visual system to achieve benefits in practiced sports, as well as in daily life and in preventive
care. The type of training practiced by the athlete, his or her physical condition, cognitive level,
and level of fatigue condition affects the speed of the reaction time and, consequently, the speed of
motor response. Specific orthoptic exercises, the use of technological devices, the recovery of static
and dynamic postural stability by using unstable platforms and the dual-task paradigm can help
to achieve the expected results. The aim of this systematic review of Sport Vision was to assess the
overall existing literature on Sport Vision, paying particular attention to the effects of visual training
and its application in different sports and in rehabilitation and preventive settings. We analysed
published English language studies about the role of sport vision in athletic performance from 1950
to 2023. We searched through the Medline database. The PRISMA 2020 checklist was used to assess
the transparency and reproducibility of this review. The enrolled papers were evaluated with the
Jadad Scale, Amstar 2 Scale and Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. 25 (16 studies, 5 reviews, 2 comments,
1 editorial, 1 descriptive paper) out of 476 studies met the inclusion criteria. Due to the variability in
the age of the samples, the different techniques, the treatments among the participants in the studies
and the finding of non-evaluable articles, a meta-analysis was not conducted. The limitations of this
review are the single database research, the studies analyzed contain a non-statistically representative
sample size and the lack of a control group. There is no standardized test to measure performance.
It was shown that the development of visual skills can benefit athletes in injury prevention, and
can lead to improved sports performance and motor function at any age, acquiring adaptive motor
behaviour even when the visual system is impaired, due to task repetition and familiarity of the
gesture. We intended to identify a multidisciplinary approach and a manual treatment scheme to
optimize the circuitry involved in sport vision in order to increase the results that are achieved, but
further studies will be needed to this end.
