Sixth nerve palsy, or abducens nerve palsy, is a disorder associated with dysfunction of cranial nerve VI (the abducens nerve), which is responsible for contracting the lateral rectus muscle to abduct (i.e., turn out) the eye. The inability of an eye to turn outward results in a convergent strabismus or esotropia of which the primary symptom is double vision or diplopia in which the two images appear side-by-side. The condition is commonly unilateral but can also occur bilaterally.
The unilateral abducens nerve palsy is the most common of the isolated ocular motor nerve palsies.
Read more about Sixth Nerve Palsy: Alternative Names, Characteristics, Causes, Differential Diagnoses, Management, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words sixth, nerve and/or palsy:
“The real dividing line between early childhood and middle childhood is not between the fifth year and the sixth year—it is more nearly when children are about seven or eight, moving on toward nine. Building the barrier at six has no psychological basis. It has come about only from the historic-economic-political fact that the age of six is when we provide schools for all.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“The American people is out to get the kaiser. We are bending every nerve and every energy towards that end; anybody who gets in the way of the great machine the energy and devotion of a hundred million patriots is building towards the stainless purpose of saving civilization from the Huns will be mashed like a fly. I’m surprised that a collegebred man like you hasn’t more sense. Don’t monkey with the buzzsaw.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive. But strong natures, backwoodsmen, New Hampshire giants, Napoleons, Burkes, Broughams, Websters, Kossuths, are inevitable patriots, until their life ebbs, and their defects and gout, palsy and money, warp them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)