LOW VISION

Low vision is the term which identifies partial sight. Low vision includes moderate vision impairment, such as tunnel vision or blind spots. It also includes legal blindness and almost total blindness.

Low vision has a variety of causes, including eye injury, diseases and heredity. Sometimes low vision involves a lack of acuity, meaning that objects appear blurred. Other times, it involves a reduced ability to distinguish colors, see contrasts or determine spatial relationships among objects.

The eyesight of a person with low vision may be hazy from cataracts, blurred or partially obscured in the central visual zone because of macular degeneration or distorted and/or blurred from diabetic retinopathy. Also, people with glaucoma or retinitis pigmentosa can lose their peripheral vision and have difficulty seeing at night.

Children as well as adults can be visually impaired, sometimes as a result of a birth defect or an injury. But low vision is mostly a problem that afflicts seniors.

When a person has been identified as having an eye condition for which there is no treatment by any medical or surgical means, our doctors provides a comprehensive Low Vision assessment and treatment.

Many Low Vision patients require very specialized services that we are well able to provide at our offices at Family Vision Care Optometry.

Low vision aids are neither cures nor corrections, but rather they help the individual make the best possible use of available vision. A great deal of instruction and practice is necessary to best utilize low-vision aids. Our skilled Low Vision Doctor assists in fitting the magnifying systems and educates the individual in the proper use of numerous low vision aids, which include magnifiers, specialized monocular and binocular telescopes, and special lighting systems.