Posts Tagged ‘eye chart’

Wavefront Diagnosis-Higher Order Aberrations

Eyesight is usually described in terms of visual acuity. When someone says “20/20 vision” we normally think of perfect vision. However, acuity is just one aspect of how well you actually see. Vision quality can be just as important in your day-to-day life. Higher order aberrations can diminish vision quality without affecting your score on the eye chart. Wavefront diagnosis detects these tiny imperfections in your eye prior to laser vision correction so that you can have precise correction and to avoid making them worse.

High Order Aberrations and Vision Quality

High order aberrations can cause problems with your vision including:

  • Glare
  • Shadows
  • Poor contrast sensitivity
  • Poor night vision
  • Halos
  • Double vision

These problems affect the quality of your vision, but do not always affect your visual acuity. Visual acuity is what is measured on the eye chart and is typically diminished by lower order aberrations – myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), and astigmatism.

While visual acuity is certainly important and can affect your eligibility for some professions and ability to hold a driver’s license, the importance of vision quality and the impact it has on your quality of life should not be overlooked.

Wavefront Technology

Wavefront technology is not new, but it has only been utilized in ophthalmology since the 1990’s. It was developed for astronomers to use in adjusting their telescopes to get the clearest image.

In ophthalmology Wavefront technology is used for diagnosis and to guide the laser during refractive surgery.

Wavefront Diagnosis and Why It is Important

During the diagnostic phase of your treatment Wavefront is used to create a 3-D map of your eyes. It detects the tiny high order aberrations that other tests cannot pick up. Light is passed into your eye, passes through the parts of your eye and reflects back out. Any differences in the pattern of the light as it passes in and when comes back out are aberrations.

High order aberrations can be made worse by LASIK surgery. Wavefront diagnosis reveals these aberrations to your ophthalmologist so he can correct them, work around them in a way that will not exacerbate any existing problems with your vision quality, or when appropriate advise against the surgery.

Wavefront diagnosis can help your eye surgeon determine whether or not LASIK or another type of laser vision correction can improve your vision. If you do not have any higher order aberrations, you may choose traditional LASIK. If you do have them, you need custom LASIK which will use the map created during your diagnosis to guide the surgery, producing very precise results.

Even if you plan to have traditional LASIK surgery, you need the Wavefront diagnosis to determine if it is safe for you.

If you have vision problems that include halos, starburst, double vision, or other problems with vision quality, please visit Eyes.com to learn more about how you can improve your eyesight.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/vision-articles/wavefront-diagnosishigher-order-aberrations-1552261.html

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Choose Custom LASIK for Precision Vision Correction

If you are considering LASIK, you might wonder whether all LASIK procedures are the same. The answer is they are not.  Custom LASIK is a newer, more accurate form of the procedure that uses detailed analysis of your eyes to design a treatment plan that is significantly more accurate than traditional LASIK and far more accurate than prescriptions for glasses and contact lenses.

What is Custom LASIK?

Custom LASIK is a LASIK treatment designed not only to give you better vision, but to give you the vision that suits you best. This means that it gives you not only optically improved vision, but vision suited to your eyes and to your lifestyle. It is functionally better vision designed specifically for you.

Optical Defects in Vision

The defects in vision that we most often think of, like nearsightedness and farsightedness, are optical defects.  In an ideal eye, the cornea focuses light from objects directly on the retina so we see a clear image.  However, in eyes with nearsightedness, farsightedness, or other optical defects, the image either focuses in front of, behind, or with distortion on the retina. This affects not only your ability to see sharp images like letters on an eye chart, but your perception of contrast, color, and other aspects of the world around you.

Custom LASIK is able to identify and correct more different types of optical defects than regular LASIK, giving you better vision from an objective standpoint.

Functional Customization

In addition, custom LASIK can take into account lifestyle factors in designing a vision solution for you.  We noted above that vision defects can not only reduce the sharpness of your vision, but reduce your sensitivity to contrast and color.  If your job or hobbies depend on your ability to see color or contrast, custom LASIK will improve your vision for those purposes.

In addition, custom LASIK has the ability to address some of the artifacts of regular LASIK, namely the incidence of glare or halos seen when driving at night.  Because these are caused by what are known as higher-order aberrations that cannot be treated and are sometimes caused by regular LASIK, only custom LASIK has the potential to reduce glare or halos seen by all people, potentially even those with large pupils, although this cannot be guaranteed.

Anatomical Customization

Anatomical customization means that your treatment is designed for your eye. The size and shape of all the parts of your eye are assessed and used when designing your vision solution. This is done not only in the reshaping of the cornea, but in the creation of the LASIK flap.  Since LASIK flaps can be created at several thicknesses, this can also be customized to match your eye, as can the diameter of the flap, which is determined not only based on the optical correction necessary, but also on the size of your pupil.

Summary

You may not understand exactly how LASIK works or how all these customizations change the way your procedure is performed.  But what you should understand is that custom LASIK gives better results for you. It gives better results than are possible with contact lenses or glasses.  There is also much evidence that it gives better results than possible for people with uncorrected vision.

If you would like to learn more about custom LASIK and what it might mean for you, visit the website of 20/20 Institute, with offices in Denver, Indianapolis, and Portland.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/vision-articles/choose-custom-lasik-for-precision-vision-correction-1369433.html

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Eyes: What to Look For! (Body Fact #4)

The new school year is just around the corner. With all there is to do to get ready, we sometimes forget the basics, like making sure our kid’s eyesight is okay. To help get everyone off on the right foot, here is a short article you can share with your children before taking them for an eye exam.

“Most kids don’t know they have a problem with their eyes until they have trouble reading a book or they can’t see the board in school. If things look blurry or if your eyes bother you in any way, tell your parents so they can take you to see an eye doctor (optometrist or ophthalmologist). If either of your parents needed glasses when they were young, chances are you will, too.

Lots of kids have their vision screened by a school nurse or family doctor. Screening is a great way to find out if you need a more thorough exam by an eye doctor. A complete eye exam takes about 30 minutes. During the exam, the doctor will check your eyes to find out how well you see. He’ll also check for eye diseases that cause blindness, like glaucoma.

The eye doctor will also have you read an eye chart and he’ll look inside your eye using a bright light and a high-powered lens. He may even use special drops to dilate (widen) the pupils of your eyes so he can check the health of your optic nerve. Or, he may give you what’s called the “air puff” test to measure the fluid pressure inside your eye. The important thing to remember about eye exams is that they’re easy and they don’t hurt at all.

If it turns out you need glasses, don’t sweat it. It’s a lot easier to read the board at school or hit a baseball when you can see it! Choose glasses that seem to match your personality. There are all kinds of styles—from plain to fancy. You may even have the choice to wear contact lenses. Just remember that they require special care and cleaning. Talk to your eye doctor about whether contact lenses or glasses are better for you.

Here’s one last bit of advice: protect your eyes. When you’re outside in the bright sun, wear sunglasses with UVA/UVB protection. Too much light can give you headaches, damage your eyes, and cause vision problems when you get older (like cataracts). And don’t forget to wear eye protection when playing a sport that could injure your eyes—like racquetball or paint ball.

So there you have it. Taking care of your eyes isn’t that hard, but it is important. See you around!”

Author and publisher, Frank Hawkins, is passionate about helping young people grow up healthy and wise. It’s no surprise, then, that he co-founded Boy’s Guide Books, LLC in 2007 to do just that. What started out as a single book Frank wrote for his son has turned into a popular and respected series of “how-to” books trusted by thousands of young men whenever they want to know about health, hygiene, nutrition, fitness, and making the right decisions about everything from dating to saving money.

http://boysguidebooks.comArticle Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/vision-articles/eyes-what-to-look-for-body-fact-4-1167855.html

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The Importance of Regular Eye Tests

It is recommended in the UK that people with eye or vision problems should have an eye test every two years. There are a variety of reasons behind this, and it is very important that you do get regular eye tests because they could save you a lot of trouble in later years.

Primarily, eye tests serve as a check up to ensure that your vision correction prescription – ie, your glasses and/or contact lenses – is up to date. Without the right prescription, not only can your sight suffer but the condition of your eyes can decline overall. This means that bigger problems could occur in the future that can be rectified in advance simply by having an eye test.

Eye tests also serve as a way for optometrists to monitor any early signs of eye disease. As with many health problems, the sooner a problem is identified, the sooner it can be treated – with a higher likelihood for success than if the problem is allowed to persist. Problems like glaucoma and cataracts can be identified far earlier than they might be if left alone, and dealt with in a comparatively painfree fashion.

At an eye test, your optometrist will undertake several measures to determine the health of your eyes and the quality of your vision. These include a discussion of your health and lifestyle background, followed by tests such as the measurement of your spectacle power, the measurement of your eye pressure – key to discovering glaucoma – autorefraction to help with your base prescription and a test of your visual acuity. This test determines how well your vision works based on near and far distances, usually involving the reading of letters on an eye chart.

There are other tests your optometrist in order to determine any other problems you may have, which check the general health of your eyes, including the strength and flexibility of the muscles in the area.

By booking regular eye tests, it is far more likely that you will save yourself from future pain and discomfort due to the greater chance of identifying any problems before they become too difficult, as well as ensuring your prescription is completely up to date so you are not at risk of entailing any other damage.

Your optometrist will also be better informed to suggest a course of treatment, whether it is new glasses or LASIK laser eye surgery for corrective purposes – making regular eye tests an essential part of your routine health checks.

Adam Singleton writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/vision-articles/the-importance-of-regular-eye-tests-1072236.html

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Get Regular Eye Exams and Stay Healthy

Most people don’t take regular eye check-ups very seriously. But that is because most people don’t know that they can cause serious damage to their eyes by not getting them examined regularly. It often happens that patients come in with the damage already done. If they had gone for regular checkups, they could’ve stopped the damage from happening. So, people should know when to start getting check-ups and how often they should get them done. This has been standardized by the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

It is recommended that adults over 40 should receive check-ups once every 2 years. Those over 50 should do it once a year. If you doubt whether this is necessary or not, you should know that certain diseases can cause a lot of damage within this time period. And for serious conditions like Glaucoma, the frequency of examination needs to be as high as every 3 months!

How Examinations are Done

During a test, the ‘Snellen’s eye chart’ (containing alphabets going big to small) is displayed at a distance of 20 feet. The patient is asked to identify the letters. If someone doesn’t know how to read, symbols are used – which they have to match to cards give to them. For children, the ‘HOTV’ test is used. The letters are displayed on the wall and they are given cards which they have to match to the letters.

Newer technology is also used to detect eye problems, such as the digital retinal eye scanner. It gives an accurate, computerized picture of the blood vessels in the eye and it is quick and comfortable for the patient. It gives out essential information needed to detect various diseases like diabetes and glaucoma.

How to Prepare for Examinations

To make sure you have a proper examination, make sure you prepare correctly in advance. You need to have certain things with you when you go to the clinic.

Make a full list of all the problems that you face. Take your glasses, contact lenses and any previous prescriptions with you. Tell the doctor about any previous illness that is somehow related to the eye. If you think something else is also relevant to the problem, always tell the doctor without hesitating. Also, maintain a record of all past surgeries in case the doctor wants to see them. Don’t forget to mention problems that your family has a history of.

By telling your doctor everything and giving him all the necessary information, you make sure that you get a proper check-up and a correct prescription. It is usually a good idea to carry your health insurance card with you. You should know that eye care professionals often work in close relations with other health care professionals. This is because many problems of the eye arise from other health issues and also because eye tests can help detect other diseases which need separate treatment.

So by getting regular eye checkups you are doing yourself a huge favor. It will help you catch many problems and diseases before they cause serious damage. So visit an eye care professional today!

There are also plenty of free eye exam coupons online where you can use them for purchases of eyeglasses for a lot less while some even offer free eye exams.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/vision-articles/get-regular-eye-exams-and-stay-healthy-1043800.html

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