Penlight Field Awareness:
Objective:
To increase the patient's awareness of his/her field deficit and to improve their ability to compensate by constantly scanning into the area of loss.
Materials:
Two small hand-held penlights.
Activity:
- With patient seated in front of therapist, alternately stimulate the patient's normal field and abnormal filed with penlight held approximately 20 degrees to patient's temporal side. Patient is instructed to quickly move their eyes to look at the light that is turned on. Even in patient's abnormal field, he or she should see the glow of the light and make a refixation movement to look at the light. If the patient seems to be unresponsive to the light in their abnormal filed, move the light closer to their midline. As the patient becomes more comfortable with the procedure, slowly move the penlight further form the midline or perform the procedure monocularly for increased difficulty. After each correct refixation, the patient should look straight ahead at the examiner to await the next target. At first, any amount of head movement is allowed in the refixation process; however, gradually try to reduce the head movement and allow a wider saccade.