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Self-test for visual acuity
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The main terms used for ocular tests description In ophthalmology the measure for visual acuity is defined as the value reciprocal of the permissive visual angle, at which the smallest interval between two points is visible. To test visual acuity special tables with certain symbols (rings or letters) of various sizes are used. It is customary to measure the value of visual acuity in percentage terms or with the help of decimal fractions. If you can see one line in the table, then your visual acuity is 10% or 0.1, if you can see 3 lines then it is 30% or 0.3. In the USA visual acuity is measured with the help of common fractions: 6/6 is analogous to 100%. The number of lines one can read in the ophthalmologic table for visual acuity self-testing will depend both on visual acuity itself and on the distance from which they are read (in former USSR countries the norm is a 5-metre distance, in other countries it is a 6-metre distance). The visual acuity self-testing table with variable size of the symbols is used here to exclude the influence of this factor. Visual acuity is not to be mixed with optical power of spectacles or contact lenses (measured in diopters), which are prescribed by an ophthalmologist and used for vision correction. Contrast sensation is very close by its meaning to visual acuity. There tests for achromatic contrast sensation (roughly speaking, it is the difference between white, various shades of grey and black colours) and chromatic (colour) contrast sensation (it is, for instance, the difference between white, light blue and dark blue colours). Achromatic contrast sensation is used in ophthalmology for diagnosing cornea edema, which may occur due to excessively long contact lens wear (see the test for a possibility of contact lens continuous wear). Ocular refraction anomalies (shortsightedness and astigmatism) are described in details in the corresponding articles. Worth's four-dot self-test allows you to reveal chromatic aberration. Chromatic sensitivity (color sensing) anomalies are fully covered in the article containing a special table for color sensing self-testing. It’s important to note that these ocular anomalies are inborn and thus, unlike shortsightedness and astigmatism, they cannot be corrected with the help of spectacles or contact lenses or treated. A trichromat is a person who distinguishes all the colours. An achromate (or a daltonian) does not distinguish colours. Someone who does not distinguish one of the colours is a dichromat. Protanopes do not distinguish a red colour, while deuteranopes cannot distinguish a green one. |