Visual retraining for homonymous hemianopia following stroke
Reviewed by Anna Song

This is a clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of motion discrimination training as a potential therapy for stroke-induced hemianopic visual field defects involving 48 patients. They were randomised into two arms, one intervention (deficit-field) and one control (sighted-field). Patients were trained on a motion discrimination task. The main outcome measure was a change in perimetric mean deviation (PMD) on Humphrey Visual Field Analyzer in both eyes. The study found that there was an improvement in mean PMD for deficit-trained patients over six months, but no improvement was seen in sighted-trained patients. However, this was not found to be statistically significant. This study did not find a difference between treatment training in improving a stroke-induced homonymous hemianopia. Currently there is no widely accepted method for treating homonymous hemianopia following stroke. Further research into this area would be beneficial.

Efficacy of visual retraining in the hemianopic field after stroke results of a randomized clinical trial.
Cavanaugh M, Blanchard L, McDermott M, et al.
OPHTHALMOLOGY
2020;128:1091-101.