The eye and the hand: a clinical review

The visual system is highly susceptible to involvement in many systemic disorders. Disorders of tissues common to the eye and the hand, such as vascular, connective and neural, may have striking clinical signs in both. Thus signs in the hand may provide useful diagnostic clues in the assessment of disorders of the visual system. The hand may even be causative in traumatic or infective eye diseases. This review provides a schema for a suitable hand examination and documents the eye and hand features of various common and uncommon disorders. The importance to the ophthalmologist of a careful hand examination is emphasised.