Riddoch (1917) described an entity which bears his name, "the Riddoch phenomenon". He observed that while patients with restricted visual fields from occipital wounds could frequently see moving objects, they could not see stationary ones in the affected fields. Riddoch divided his cases into three categories:(I) Those who perceived movement only on the affected side;(2) Those who perceived both moving and stationary objects (but to a different degree); (3) Those with no dissociation between moving and stationary objects.From his analysis of the visual fields in ten patients with occipital lobe lesions, he concluded that visual functions concerned with the recognition of moving objects and those concerned with the perception of stationary objects are dissociated from each other in the occipital cortex. He considered the absence of this dissociation for a period of several months to be a poor prognostic sign, and postulated that if recovery is occurring after injury the appreciation of movement could be expected to return before the recognition of a comparable stationary object.Riddoch did not confirm his hypothesis by testing patients with lesions elsewhere in the optic pathway, and while he tested a wide spectrum of lesions due to war injuries, he described no other unique or isolated response characteristics. This paper reports patients with confirmed lesions in areas other than the occipital lobes who had response characteristics similar to those described by Riddoch.
Case reportsPatient i, a 55-year-old female, was referred to the Eye Consult Service, Washington University School of Medicine, because of inability to see objects on the right side. This field loss had progressed to a point where she was able to perceive only light and dark on that side.
ExaminationThe visual acuity was 20/15 in the right eye and 20/25 in the left. The entire ophthalmological examination gave normal results except for the visual fields.
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