What Can You Expect During an Eye Exam?

Routine eye exams involve more than just finding the right prescription lenses for your needs and picking out fashionable frames. When examining your eyes, optometrists use a variety of tests that can help determine your overall health. Diseases, such as, diabetes, hypertension, and autoimmune disorders can be detected through various eye tests during your eye exam. In some cases, optometrists are the first to detect these full-body health problems.

Below is a list of five common vision tests you may encounter during an eye exam.

During this test, the lights are dimmed and the optometrist will have you focus on a chart across the room. As you focus on the image, the doctor will place a device in front of your eye and shine a light on your eye, while flipping through various lenses. Based on how the light reflects from your eye, the optometrist can determine what kind of prescription you currently have.

If you already have an eyeglass prescription, but don’t know the exact type when your doctor asks, this test can be used to get an approximation of your prescription.

Your optometrist uses this test to evaluate your eyesight. Most of us are familiar with this test. One example is the Snellen test. Your eye doctor uses a wall chart to test your distance vision (how well you see at a distance). The chart has several rows of letters that decrease in size as you move down the chart. The optometrist will place you 20 feet away from the chart and ask you to read the smallest row of letters you can while covering one eye. This test is done for each eye. Other tests include the Jaeger test and the E chart.

The visual acuity test is conducted to detect any vision problems a patient may have or to monitor vision problem already detected during a previous eye exam.

During this test, an optometrist evaluates your color perception. This can help detect color blindness or other diseases that may affect your color perception. This is usually conducted early in the routine eye exam. For this exam, the patient sits at a table, covering one eye, and the optometrist shows him various slides with different patterns of colored dots. The patient then looks for symbols or numbers hidden in the pattern.

Believe it or not, 20/20 vision is just “normal” vision. If you have 20/20 vision, this means that you can see what people with normal vision can see from 20 feet away. If the number on the right is lower (20/10), then your vision is above normal. If the number is higher (20/60), then your vision is below normal, meaning different levels of vision loss. There are various classifications for visual impairment that optometrists use to evaluate your eyesight.

Mather Vision Group is a local eye practice located in Lafayette, Indiana. Contact our office to schedule an appointment or stop in to see our large variety of eye glass frames at our Lafayette, Indiana vision center. You can find us online, on Facebook, and Google+.