Temporary and persistent visual phenomena in neurology

Abstract

Temporary and persistent visual phenomena are afrequent reason for aneurological presentation. The diagnosis can usually be made with the help of astructured anamnesis with determination of the time of onset, the course and symptoms as well as the monocular vs. binocular manifestation. The visual aura in migraine is certainly the most frequent entity to be differentiated. In particular, persistent visual phenomena such as visual snow syndrome, hallucinogen persisting perception disorder and the Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS) seem to be underdiagnosed in clinical practice for various reasons and are probably not that rare. Instrumental diagnostics are mostly used for exclusion diagnostics and are acomponent of acomplete patient education, but can be indicative for certain questions (CBS, epilepsy). This article presents the most frequent visual phenomena from the neurological practice and their differential diagnoses, guided by acase history.