One measure of your visual function is to read letters on a visual acuity chart. This is a measure of your central vision and is the most critical part of your vision. However, that is only one a measure of your visual function. Another aspect is your overall visual field, sometimes referred to as peripheral vision.
Although many people mistake it as simply a peripheral vision test, a visual field test is actually designed to measure the overall field of vision as it is interpreted by the brain in four neurological quadrants. Different parts of your brain control different parts of your visual field. Results of a visual field test can sometimes help physicians make a diagnosis.
Measuring Your Visual Field
There are different ways to conduct a visual field examination. The most common way to measure the four quadrants of a visual field is to perform confrontation neurologic visual fields. Both optometrists and ophthalmologists perform confrontation visual fields with this method during a comprehensive eye examination. It is performed by having the doctor or technician sit at eye level with the patient. One eye is covered. The other eye focuses directly on the technician’s eye and either one, two or four fingers are held in each of the four quadrants. The patient is not allowed to move their eye or look at the fingers but must respond with how many fingers the technician is holding up. After all four quadrants are tested, the other eye is measured.
When a visual field deficit is discovered with the finger counting method or if the physician suspects visual field changes, a more formal method will be used called standard automated perimetry (SAP). An SAP is a computerized instrument that measures the field with different lights of different sizes and brightness. This test is able to conduct several different types of field tests in a standardized fashion. A threshold test measures an individual’s “just barely detectable” vision and quantifies how sensitive a patient may or may not be of detecting points that are considered normal.
These maps of visual sensitivity are very important in diagnosing diseases of the visual system. Different patterns of visual loss are found with diseases or injury to the eye, optic nerve, or central nervous system.
Potential Causes of Abnormal Results
Glaucoma Eye stroke to retina or optic nerve (cable that brings vision from eye to brain) Retinal disorders like detachments Increased intracranial pressure Compression on the optic nerve A stroke to the brain Brain tumors Pituitary gland problems
