Disentangling hemineglect and hemianopia.

Neglect and hemianopia represent frequent disorders in brain damaged patients. Differential diagnosis of both disorders may be difficult since both may present in diagnostic tests and daily life as a failure to perceive or read to stimuli in the contralesional hemi-space or hemifield. The present paper summarizes several useful techniques in order to achieve a correct distinction. After a short review of the clinical phenomenology of hemianopia and -neglect the following topics are described: (1) subjective complaints and awareness of deficits (2) aetiology and lesion localisation, (3) uni-versus multimodal deficits; (4) extinction, (5) drawing from memory: (6) visual-spatial disorders; (7) line bisection, (8) effectiveness of attentional ''cueing'' strategies; (9) specific perimetric techniques; (10) visual evoked potentials and eye movement registration. The differences between hemianopia and -neglect are contrasted for all these topics. Taken all these possible features together the association and/or dissociation of hemineglect and postchiasmatic scotomata can efficiently be diagnosed. The results are summarized in a table at the end of the paper.