Low Vision

Eye care professionals use the term "low vision" to describe significant visual impairment that cannot be corrected with standard glasses, contact lenses, medicine or eye surgery.

Low vision includes loss of best-corrected visual acuity — to a level worse than 20/60 in the better eye, measured with a standard eye chart — or visual field loss such as tunnel vision or blind spots. It also describes 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 significant loss of peripheral vision and visual field. Other symptoms of low vision include light sensitivity, distorted vision or loss of contrast.

The eyesight of a person with low vision may be hazy, 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 more commonly afflicts adults and seniors. Vision loss can be very traumatic, leading to frustration and depression.

Woolf & Woolf specializes in treating low vision and in helping patients regain their independence. This includes making house calls for patients who need in-home care. If you or someone you know is suffering from low vision, please call our office today to schedule an appointment with Dr. Levy or Dr. Howard Woolf, who both specialize in Low Vision.

Low vision definition adapted from AllAboutVision.com.