Understanding 
Hemianopic Visual Field Loss

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Hemianopsia is a blindness or reduction in vision in one half of the visual field. Hemianopsia can be caused by conditions such as stroke, tumors and trauma. The cause of a hemianopsia must always be carefully investigate by the patient's physicians. Hemianopsia may vary from an absolute loss of all vision on one side to a relative loss where vision is reduced, but not completely missing. Relative hemianopsia may vary from light or motion detection only in the impaired field to only subtle decreases in sensitivity demonstrated on careful visual field testing. The defect is called a homonymous hemianopsia when the field loss presents on the same side in both eyes. This is typical of stroke and patient suffering right or left arm or leg weakness may also present a homonymous hemianopsia on the same side of the weakness. Pure occipital lobe stroke, affecting the part of the brain that processes vision may result in a homonymous hemianopsia without any other impairment or paralysis.

During the first few months after a stroke or trauma, some improvement in visual fields may be possible, but recovery depends on the extent of the damage. There are no specific treatments  to cure the field loss, but today we have optical devices and therapies  that help most patients compensate for their visual field loss. These optical systems include the Gottlieb Visual Field Awareness System, the EP Hemianopic lens and various press-on field enhancers.

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