Spatial Awareness Processing Disorder™ (SAPD™)
A Neuro-Visual Condition Emerging From Our Modern Life
The world is getting flatter and so is our spatial awareness. We live in a time where we are always looking forward, but rarely around. Screens have shifted our lives into flat, two-dimensional rectangles. Our eyes lock into near space, our posture collapses forward, and our sensory systems adapt to a world that demands focus — but not awareness.
Across thousands of patient encounters, I began noticing something unmistakable:
✅ Peripheral vision is shrinking
✅ Depth perception is weakening
✅ Navigation skills are fading
✅ People bump into objects more
✅ Kids struggle with ball sports and body-in-space tasks
✅ Adults rely on GPS for even familiar routes
✅ Many feel “off” in busy environments without knowing why
This is not random.
This is not personality.
This is not clumsiness.
It’s a pattern — and patterns need names.
After years of observing these predictable symptoms in adults and children, especially those spending 6–10 hours a day on screens, I recognized a gap in medical language.
We had:
Computer Vision Syndrome (eye fatigue)
ADHD (attention)
Vestibular disorders (balance)
Visuospatial neglect (neurological injury)
But none of these captured a very specific, modern, progressive weakening of the brain’s spatial-mapping system driven by lifestyle — not pathology.
Hence I coined: Spatial Awareness Processing Disorder™ (SAPD™)
A neuro-visual condition characterized by the diminished ability to process spatial, peripheral, and navigational information — accelerated by chronic screen-based living and reduced movement through real space.
SAPD™ is not a disease. It is a neuro-adaptive shift in how the eye–brain system processes space. When we cannot name a phenomenon, we cannot recognize it, measure it, or intervene early. SAPD™ gives us the language we’ve been missing.
The Modern Problem — We Live in “Near Space”
Screens collapse our visual world into:
one distance
one focal plane
one posture
one direction of gaze
In this restricted environment:
▪ peripheral vision shuts down
▪ the dorsal visual stream becomes under-stimulated
▪ motion and depth cues diminish
▪ postural reflexes weaken
▪ spatial mapping degrades
Humans evolved in a 360°, three-dimensional world, not in rectangles. When the eyes live in flat space, the brain slowly forgets how to operate in real space. That’s the heart of SAPD™.
The Neuroscience Behind SAPD™
Spatial awareness depends heavily on the dorsal visual stream, the brain’s “WHERE/HOW” pathway:
V1 → V2 → MT/V5 → Posterior Parietal Cortex
This pathway is responsible for:
motion tracking
depth judgment
navigation and mapping
peripheral integration
body-in-space awareness
visual-vestibular coordination
And it is use-dependent.
When most of your day is spent:
sitting
staring at near space
moving only your thumbs
absorbing 2D information
overstimulating foveal input
under stimulating optic-flow and peripheral cues
…the dorsal stream adapts downward.
SAPD™ describes this modern, maladaptive recalibration of spatial processing.
My goal in introducing SAPD™ is simple:
✔️ Give people a name for what they’re experiencing
✔️ Spark research into the spatial cost of digital life
✔️ Create earlier recognition for children
✔️ Help adults reclaim their spatial abilities
✔️ Start a global conversation on spatial health
SAPD™ is the beginning of that conversation.