Homonymous Hemianopia This occurs when part or half of the visual field is lost. The visual field is the whole area that the eye can see at any point. Homonymous Hemianopia will affect both eyes at the same time. It can affect either in the right side of visual field in both eyes or the left side of visual field in both eyes. Sometimes a quarter of the visual field is lost, this is known as a quadrantanopia

Example of what a patient with hemianopia would see

The person may have difficulty when walking and bump into obstacles . They may not notice objects placed on the table at their affected side or knock over objects which they were unaware of near by. Hononymous Hemianopia can be very difficult for the person when they go outdoors. They may not be aware of all the people and objects around them. They may need supervision for safety until they have learned coping strategies and techniques to adapt

The person will be taught to scan and look to the affected side by using head movements and eye movements to compensate for the loss of vision to one side.

The person with Homonymous Hemianopia can re learn to scan and look to the affected side with practice and prompts.

Reading can be difficult as the person may miss words or parts of sentences on the page. Sometimes it helps if the person uses a brightly coloured post it note at the edge of the page to scan towards. They may also use a typoscope which is card with a slit cut out to put over a sentence at a time.

A typoscope