The patient wants to look to the right. The saccade moves the
eye there but, because of the PPH lesion, the eye starts to
drift back. So the patient generates a second saccade, and third etc.,
which also drift back.
If the patient looks to the left the same thing happens.
This rhythmic eye movement is called nystagmus.
Nystagmus consists of a quick phase (saccades) and a slow
phase (in this case a drift back to center)
This particular form of nystagmus is called gaze paretic
nystagmus because
- the drift is exponential
- the drift direction is different depending on where the
patient looks.
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