[Eye movement patterns in homonymous hemianopsia and visual hemineglect. Criteria of oculographic delineation based on 19 cases and their diagnostic significance].

Patients with homonymous hemianopia are quite differently handicapped in daily life. While residual visual functions in the blind hemifield can be responsible for such differences in visual orientation, compensatory oculomotor mechanisms or the presence of additional visual hemineglect may also play a role. In order to find objects in their blind hemifield such patients essentially employ three oculomotor searching strategies: A "staircase" strategy, an "overshoot" strategy, and a "predictive" strategy. Patients with additional visual hemineglect, however, are neither able to use the predictive strategy, nor can they develop an overshoot strategy with time. Oculographic criteria compiled previously by the present authors were employed in 19 cases with homonymous hemianopia and/or visual hemineglect to demonstrate the possibility of an objective and quantitative delimitation of these two disorders. The practical importance of such a delimitation is that patients with hemineglect are much more handicapped, but ignore or underestimate their handicap.