Humphrey Visual Field

Excerpt

Perimetry is an important diagnostic tool to identify and measure the extent of defects in the visual field. It helps in diagnosing glaucoma and assessing the progression of glaucoma. This article discusses the process of perimetry and the interpretation of the visual field printouts (Humphrey visual field Analyzer). The history of visual field analysis dates back 2000 years, when Hippocrates first reported a case of hemianopsia.

Successively, Ulmus was the first to publish the first illustration of visual fields. Albrecht von Graefe was the first one to publish visual field defects that are characteristic of glaucoma as known today. However, he attributed the field defects at that time to amblyopia due to a lack of knowledge about glaucoma. Landesberg was the first to describe the arcuate defect of glaucoma. The field defect corresponds to the arcuate-like arrangement of the axons emerging from the optic disc.

Jannik Bjerrum used a tangent screen to map the details of the central 30° diameter of the visual field. In subsequent years, Hans Goldmann developed a bowl perimeter that provided a uniform background illumination and a moving optical projection system that could superimpose bright stimuli on the background. Later, Franz Fankhauser, Drs. John R. Lynn and George W. Tate were the first ones to automate the process of perimetry.