The visual field can be defined as the space in which our visual system can detect the presence of stimuli. That is to say, the visual field is what our eye can see when we fix our gaze on a static point, which includes the point where we pose the view and its surroundings (periphery). It allows us to perceive our environment on a day-to-day basis.

We constantly work for your visual health; that is our mission; contribute to a clearer and healthier vision for you is our goal. Through our optometrists, consultations, and lens formulation, we create a path of recommendations for a healthier eye, appropriate care, and visual impairment prevention.

However, you must know what makes up your vision and how it works. Do you dare?

Thus, you will know that the normal limits of the visual field are:

• Nasal portion: It refers to the space that goes from the center of the vision field towards the nose. Temporal portion: refers to the space that goes from the center of the field of vision towards the ear.
• Upper portion: Space that goes from the center of the field of vision upwards.
• Bottom portion: Space that goes from the center of the field of vision down.

A decrease in these limits of the visual field would reduce what a person can see when fixing their gaze on a point, with the difficulties that this can entail when moving around their environment. Besides, they considerably limit occupational performance, especially the ability to move freely, avoid obstacles, read, drive, and participate in rehabilitation.

Functional implications of the visual field 

1. a) Occipital lobe: area V-1 (primary visual cortex), initiates the analysis of visual information. The orientation, position, and movement of the images are shaped. This is also the area where eye-tracking movements start.
2. b) The frontal lobe is responsible for motor planning and is where voluntary movements of muscles are associated and integrated. The eye’s frontal fields are located here and are involved in involuntary eye movements and the initiation of voluntary saccades.
3. c) Temporal lobe: visual information is processed to identify the images.
4. d) Parietal lobe: this area is involved in integrating and information about the object’s location in space and its relationships with others. It is also where body representation develops and where we assemble our spatial world.

Optometry and vision therapy

For this reason, the development of an optometric program is important; it is based on the identification of potentially recoverable visual alterations and their subsequent treatment through optometric vision therapy.

A late diagnosis of the existence of a visual problem in the neurological patient can delay his rehabilitation process both at a cognitive level (in learning, literacy, communication tasks, etc.) and at a motor level: (postural and balance alterations that hinder standing, difficulties in re-learning to walk, to carry out movements and transfers, etc.)

Optometrists are the professionals who can help us in the specialized assessment of these cases and the elaboration of rehabilitation programs, with emphasis on retraining or compensation.