Nystagmus

The patient wants to look to the right. The saccade moves the eye there but, because of the PPH lesion, the eye starts to drift back.

So the patient generates a second saccade, and third etc., which also drift back.

If the patient looks to the left the same thing happens.

This rhythmic eye movement is called nystagmus.

Nystagmus consists of a quick phase (saccades) and a slow phase (in this case a drift back to center)

This particular form of nystagmus is called gaze paretic nystagmus because

  • the drift is exponential
  • the drift direction is different depending on where the patient looks.

 


Created by Tutis Vilis and Douglas Tweed
Department of Physiology
University of Western Ontario
London Ontario Canada
Sept 25 1996

Comments welcome. Email to tvilis@physiology.uwo.ca