Comprehensive Eye Exam
A comprehensive eye exam assesses your visual system and eye health. A vision screening only assesses your vision. A comprehensive eye exam is an important part of preventive health care. Early diagnosis and treatment of eye and vision problems can help prevent vision loss as many conditions have no signs or symptoms.
The exam includes a battery of tests in order to do a complete evaluation of the health of both your eyes and your vision. Some of these tests include:
Patient History
A patient history includes your eye or vision symptoms, allergies, medications, you and your family’s systemic and vision issue history, and daily environment conditions may all affect your issue. These details are also important in preventative eye care measures to keep your eyes healthy for years to come
Visual Acuity
Visual acuity is a measurement and evaluation of how clearly each eye is seeing. This is usually tested by reading letters, numbers or images on a chart at a distance and/or at near. The results of visual acuity testing do not give you a prescription, it is only an assessment of your vision.
Refraction
Refraction uses involves a number of steps to help determine your best corrected vision and your prescription for glasses. Measuring the focus of light through the lenses and using a handheld lighted instrument called a retinoscope, your doctor can evaluate your visual need. The optometrist may instead use an instrument that automatically evaluates the focusing power of the eye. Subsequently, a series of lenses will be shown before your eyes using a instrument called a phoropter to determine your best vision.
Eye Focus, Teaming and Movement
We have two eyes for a reason. To see a single, clear image, the two eyes must work together. Assessment of this ocular movement, accommodation, and binocular vision determine how well your two eyes work as one team.
Eye Health Evaluation
Assessing the health of all the structures of the eye and the surrounding tissues is a crucial part of the eye examination. An unhealthy eye can ultimately lead to vision issues and blindness.
A slit lamp or biomicroscope allows the doctor to examine both the internal and external health of the eye — lids, lashes, conjunctiva, iris, lens, cornea, vitreous, retina and the optic nerve. Some examples of pathology found include conjunctivitis, cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration or retinal detachment. Early diagnosis and treatment is the key to preventing vision loss for many eye conditions. In addition, the internal health evaluation can detect often diagnose the possibility of other systemic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia.
The doctor may also choose to dilate your eyes. Dilating eye drops are often used to temporarily widen the pupil for better views of the internal structures of the eye. The dilation drops relax the muscles in the eyes to open the pupil; as a result, patients tend to have temporary trouble focusing (mostly at) near objects for a few hours afterwards. The widening of the pupil also results in increased temporary light sensitivity. Your doctor will provide you with disposable sunglasses or you may want to bring your own to wear after the examination.
Contact Lenses
It's important to understand that a comprehensive eye exam does not include a contact lens fitting, and therefore you will not be given a contact lens prescription at the end of a routine eye exam.