What is the eye exam chart?

Facts and history about the eye test chart. The most commonly used eye chart is known as the Snellen chart. It usually shows 11 rows of capital letters. This is an eye exam that you can perform at home.

This can be particularly valuable now during the coronavirus crisis. Instructions are provided for using your computer monitor or for printing an eye chart. Snellen created the standardized ophthalmology chart, each ophthalmologist or eye doctor had a chart they preferred, says Jenny E.

Eye charts don't help the

ophthalmologist determine if you have an eye disease such as glaucoma or a problem with the retina.

Although eye chart tests identify refractive errors, they cannot detect signs of deficiencies in visual abilities or diseases such as glaucoma, cataracts, or macular degeneration. A thorough eye exam can often detect certain underlying diseases that may endanger vision and eye health, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, tumors, autoimmune diseases, and thyroid disorders. Early diagnosis and treatment of eye conditions is essential to ensuring long-term eye and eye health. For example, ophthalmologists will use graphics with drawings or patterns for younger children who may not have learned to read or identify letters and numbers.

Safe Eyes America is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the delivery of the highest quality medical and surgical eye care to the American public. Your Fishers ophthalmologist will ask you to look through a phoropter, an instrument used to test individual lenses in each eye during an eye exam, and to look at the Snellen chart placed 20 feet away. If there's one aspect of optometry that everyone recognizes, it's the traditional eye chart, with its rows of large letters at the top, which gradually get smaller as you go. Acuity charts are used during many types of eye exams, such as eye refraction to determine the best prescription for glasses.

For the first time, the Snellen eye chart allowed a person to provide a standardized prescription from any eye care provider who chose any eyeglass manufacturer, and obtain the same optical lenses to accurately correct their vision. Some clinics do not have 6-meter eye lanes available, and a medium-sized board that subtends the same angles at 3 meters (9.8 feet), or an inverted table projected and viewed by a mirror is used to achieve the correct size letters. Your ophthalmologist will prescribe lenses that give you clearer and more comfortable vision. A person taking the test covers one eye at a distance of 6 meters or 20 feet and reads aloud the letters in each row, starting at the top.