NYSTAGMUS -- Bedside examination

Timothy C. Hain, MD Page last modified: March 20, 2008

Nystagmus is defined as involuntary movement of the eyes.

This is a list of on-site links to material related to nystagmus. We use this page so that references to a previous "all in one" page continue to work. This material is mainly oriented towards the bedside examination rather than the ENG recording.

There are two fundamental types of nystagmus - -spontaneous (occurs without any provocation) and evoked (you have to do something to see it).

The following material attempts to illustrate and describe nystagmus subtypes. The more common types of nystagmus have associated moves on the site DVD

SPONTANEOUS NYSTAGMUS

• Vestibular imbalance nystagmus -- this is the core "dizzy" type nystagmus. Most of this very large site is about vestibular nystagmus and we do not list all of the examples here. There are many movies -- see these in particular --
  • BPPV
  • Menieres disease
  • Vestibular Neuritis
• Acquired pendular nystagmus -- sinusoidal eye movement -- (see spontaneous nystagmus page)
• Horizontal
• Vertical
• See-saw
• Congenital Nystagmus
  • Latent nystagmus
  • Pendular type
  • Jerk type
  • Periodic alternating Nystagmus (PAN)
• Convergence/Retraction nystagmus
• Divergence nystagmus
• Periodic alternating nystagmus (PAN)
• Central nystagmus
  • downbeat
  • upbeat nystagmus
  • horizontal
  • torsional
• Saccadic Nystagmus

EVOKED NYSTAGMUS

• Gaze evoked nystagmus (GEN)
  • Symmetrical GEN
  • Asymmetrical GEN
  • Rebound nystagmus
• Head-shaking nystagmus (HSN)
• Hyperventilation induced nystagmus
• Caloric nystagmus
• Optokinetic Nystagmus (OKN)
• Positional Nystagmus
• Pressure induced nystagmus
  • Fistula test (external pressure) -- see fistula page
  • Valsalva (internal pressure) -- see SCD page