A new treatment is helping people who have suffered brain injuries regain their vision.

Loss of sight is a common consequence of injuries to the brain and affects around a third of stroke survivors.

The new therapy developed at the University of Aberdeen is designed to improve the speed of eye movements to compensate for this loss of vision.

Professor Arash Sahraie, who led the study, said: "This type of sight deficit can be massively debilitating for those affected by it.

"Patients report a loss of confidence in their own ability to navigate the environment that can then manifest itself in the form of withdrawal from daily life.

"This is why it's important to develop techniques to help patients to improve as much as they can and this compensatory technique is yet another step forward in providing help and therapy for these patients."

The NeuroEyeCoach system involves having patients focus on a single point in the centre of a computer screen and asking them to respond whenever they see lights appear along the edges of the monitor, which helps them to gradually retrain their eyes.

A study on the treatment was published in the academic journal Biomed Research International.