Eye tests are critical for older people to maintain visual health. While regular eye tests can find out visual problems and suggest early treatments, a delayed eye test may lead to incurable vision problems and even blindness. Some older individuals reject to receive any eye test during decades because they “feel” good with their vision conditions. However, some chronic eye diseases may be deteriorating progressively, resulting in unfortunate visual results. In general, basic eye tests that give eye doctor essential information about visual functions include tests of eye pressures, visual field, dilated retinal, slit lamp and refraction.

Good vision is critical for daily lives because most things are perceived through the eyes. However, a large group of people are bothered by various eye problems now. Many people need eyeglasses or contact lenses at certain point in the life.

Many seniors have low or fixed incomes or inadequate insurance so that they can not afford eye care expenses. A dilemma is formed because that eye diseases such as cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration are mostly found on seniors.

Currently, most of the doctors change the lenses with different powers in front of the patient and get his response, in order to get the exact prescription. In fact, the result is based on the patient’s subjective feeling. New wavefront technology can automatically identify vision errors from the way light waves travel through the eye, which is objective. Wavefront measurements can also provide more information than conventional eyeglasses or contacts prescription. Actually, wavefront-guided LASIK can provide sharper vision than conventional LASIK. It is estimated that wavefront measurement will replace conventional prescriptions.

During a comprehensive eye exam, you will always receive the Ishihara Color Vision Test for color blindness test, which is the most widely applied screening test invented by the Japanese ophthalmologist Shinobu Ishihara. The booklet of the test consists of typically 38 plates of many dots of various colors, brightness and sizes. Normal people can see clear numbers through these dots, which is beyond individuals with color blindness. Other abbreviated versions of this test comprise only 14 or 24 plates.

Some people may be diagnosed with refractive errors after an eye exam, which means the eyes can not refract or focus light properly. The eye’s ability to focus light is decisive for one’s vision sharpness. Refractive eyeglasses, contact lenses as well as refractive surgeries can be used to correct a refractive error.

There are three types of eye professionals: optometrists, ophthalmologists and opticians, the former two of which are eye doctors.

Good vision such as 20/20 does not mean satisfying contrast sensitivity. Common vision tests using black letters or numbers displayed against white backgrounds can not reflect your exact contrast sensitivity, since the real world is filled with grey shades. So that special contrast sensitivity testing is necessary.

Also called side vision, one people’s full horizontal and vertical vision range can be determined by a visual field test, which also detects potential blind spots in the visual field. Some eye and brain disorders are responsible for these visual field defects. Glaucoma, toxic exposure and retina damage can cause optic nerve damage and blind spots. Brain strokes and tumors may also affect the visual field.

Regular comprehensive eye exams are crucial for both adults and children to maintain eye health. An eye exam can help adults not only formulate and update their eyewear prescription, but also search for any sign of common eye diseases. For children, eye exams are even more important since vision is so closely related to their study. If they have poor vision or image interpretation, they are most likely to have a poor performance in their study. Parents should take children to a related professional doctor for an eye examination as soon as they get a reading or learning difficulty, in order to find out the potential vision root.