A stroke patient is unable to see your fingers on his entire right side during confrontation testing. What is this finding called?

The correct term for the finding where a stroke patient is unable to see fingers on the entire right side during confrontation testing is right homonymous hemianopsia. This condition occurs when there is damage to the visual pathways in the brain, typically due to a stroke affecting the right side of the brain, which in turn impacts the left visual field of both eyes.

In this particular scenario, the patient’s inability to see objects on their right side indicates that there is disruption in the neural pathways responsible for processing visual information from the left visual field, resulting in a loss of vision on the right side. The term "homonymous" refers to the fact that the visual field loss is the same in both eyes, but restricted to the right side due to the left hemisphere of the brain being affected.

Understanding how visual field defects are classified helps in recognizing different patterns. For example, bitemporal hemianopsia involves loss of vision in the outer (temporal) fields of both eyes, typically linked to pituitary tumors affecting the optic chiasm. Right temporal hemianopsia indicates loss in the right outer field, indicative of damage to the right optic radiation, while binasal hemianopsia presents with loss in the nasal fields of both