The Dr. Bill Takeshita Foundation

Last Modified: Sat, 11 Aug 2007

Low vision is a specialized field of vision care that concentrates on improving the remaining vision of children and adults with sub-normal vision. Patients with low vision are often referred to low vision specialists by ophthalmologists when medical and surgical treatments can no longer improve vision to normal levels. The majority of low vision specialists are optometrists but there are increasing numbers of ophthalmologists entering the field of low vision. These doctors perform a specialized vision assessment called a low vision examination, which does not concentrate on diagnosing eye disease but rather focuses on creating solutions to enhance the remaining vision of patients with low vision and to help patients to perform the tasks that they desire in their daily lives.

Low vision examinations begin with an extensive interview. Doctors personally interview the patients to understand the specific goals, complaints, difficulties, expectations, and needs of the patients. The interviews also enable doctors to determine whether the patients are in the correct emotional state to begin vision rehabilitation. Patients who are extremely depressed, angry, or emotional often benefit from individual counseling by professionals who specialize in working with the visually impaired.

Once the specific goals, complaints, and expectations are determined, the doctors will perform specialized tests to determine the best ways to treat the problems. Distance sight, reading sight, peripheral vision, color vision, contrast sensitivity, eye teaming skills, eye muscle coordination, and scanning skills are measured. The doctors also map out the regions of the eye that has the best and worst vision. All of this data is used to determine the visual strengths and weaknesses and then design visual aids to take advantage of the visual strengths. For example, patients who have strong color vision will benefit from having filters incorporated in their glasses to maximize the use of color vision. Patients with strong peripheral vision will benefit from prismatic glasses that deflect images on the peripheral retina while patients who only have central vision will benefit from glasses that concentrate the visual images on the central retina.

Low vision specialists generally do not use over the counter magnifiers. They usually attempt to design glasses that will maximize many aspects of vision. Magnifiers can be helpful when reading a menu or inspecting a piece of mail but they are not the most efficient solution to help students to read, write, see the computer, or read the chalkboard in the classroom. Glasses have many advantages over magnifiers in that they allow users to have both hands free to type, write, draw, play instruments, and they can also improve distance sight. Low vision specialists use lenses, prisms, microscopes, telescopes, filters, colors, and electronic devices to maximize vision.