If you are being treated for an eye disease or condition you may very well have undergone a variety of tests, tests designed to assess your visual function. Knowing what these tests can and can not show, and understanding how to interpret the results of your tests is a critical…

Observing blind spots

If your MeyeSight Visual Fitness test or in-office perimetry tests reveal blind spots:

Why do you think you have not noticed these blind spots? How could one miss these?

One reason is that using only one eye and not allowing it to move cancels out the visual system’s ability to adapt and adjust to missing information. By moving the eyes constantly (and unconsciously) you create a complete picture by putting together varied portions of the retinal images.

Consider these questions to explore peripheral field loss functional defects:

Do you bump or stumble into objects?

Are you confused by object-to-object relationships or self-to-object relationships?

The peripheral retina gives us spatial information; we are aware of things on the side even if we don’t see clearly.  Without this spatial awareness we bump and stumble into things,  lose object-to-object and self-to-object relationship. This can be exhausting!

Do you find you need more illumination than previously?

Fields – visual field testing  

Visual field tests such as the Humphrey automated perimetry exam perimetry may be a part of your treatment plan. If so:

Do you know what the visual field test is recording?

Although patients such as those with glaucoma often think of the field test as a test of peripheral vision, it tests the whole area as seen when looking straight ahead with the head and eyes still. The peripheral fields are the outer edges of the visual field.

While the quality within the visual field is usually better centrally and poorer on the edges, there are diseases such as macular degeneration in which the normally sharp central vision is blurred or distorted.

When defects are peripheral, as with glaucoma, moving around safely can become an issue. When vision loss is central, as in macular degeneration, reading and detailed work become difficult.

Disease can affect visual field even if there is no field defect, for example overall blurring.

Have you seen the results of your field test?

Do you understand what you are seeing on the printout of the test?

If the answer is no, learn about the test results here LINK>>>

What’s your understanding of how your field tests are or are not changing over time?