Visual Acuity Flashcards
What is VA?
Ability of the individual to discriminate detail; to resolve a pattern into spatially separated elements.
What is visual resolution?
Denotes size of detail able to be resolved by the individual
What can 4mo’s do with regards to VA?
They like black-&-white gratings, prefer patterns, fix & follow light and are able to ask parents about the child.
What questions should you ask parents with regards to their 4mo’s VA?
Whether the child:
- Makes eye contact
- Responds to facial expression
- Responds to lights going on/off
- Whether pupils respond to light
- Responds to objects moving
What VA test should you use for a 4mo?
Forced-Choice Preferential Looking; Keeler/Teller or Lea Gratings Paddles
Black and White gratings have a number of cycles per degree at the nodal point of the eye. The narrower they are the higher the spatial frequency.
How do you use Keeler or Teller acuity cards?
For 8wks -12mo
15 cards of B-&-W gratings either L or R with 1 blank and a 4mm central hole. They range from 0.32 to 38 c/degree.
Held at 38cm using a staircase method moving up 0.5, 1 or 2 octaves depending on infant response.
1 Octave = 0.22 or 0.44 c/degree
0.5 Octave = 0.22 or 0.33 c/degree
If 2x wrong = not seen
Show lower card
If losing interest can twist cards to show vertically
How far do you hold Keeler/Teller cards?
38cm
What range do the c/degree are Keeler/Teller cards?
0.32 up to 38 c/degree
What age-range are Keeler/Teller Acuity Cards for?
8wks - 12 mo or people with mental or physical disabilities
What distance are Lea Gratings Paddles held at?
57cm or can be at 29cm & 86cm
What are Lea Gratings Paddles?
Black-&-white stripes of 4 paddles 8” in diameter measured in cycles per centimetre (cpcm) at 0.25, 0.5, 1, 4 and 8.
They watch the eyes to see if moving towards the striped or blank paddle or not.
Why are Lea Gratings Paddles good?
- Good for ages up to 12mo
- Portable
- Good for individuals with disabilities
- Fast to perform
- Better fixation for under 12mo compared to Cardiff Cards
What age-range are the Cardiff Acuity Cards for?
1.5 year olds to around 2.5 years
What are the Cardiff Acuity cards?
For testing visual acuity in 1.5 - 2.5yo
They’re grey cards with a familiar pic for the age range e.g. fish. The picture has a white band bordered by 2 black bands of half the width.
The average luminance is equal to the grey backgrounds and thus is a vanishing optotype and so beyond the acuity threshold it is invisible.
The pic is at the top or bottom and there are 3 cards per acuity level with 11 levels in total.
How many cards and levels are there in the Cardiff Acuity Cards?
The pic is at the top or bottom and there are 3 cards per acuity level with 11 levels in total.
What VA do we test holding the Cardiff Acuity cards at 1 meter?
6/60 - 6/6
What VA do we test holding the Cardiff Acuity cards at 0.5 meters?
6/120 - 6/12
How do you carry out the Cardiff Acuity Cards?
- Occlude 1 eye, beginning with the widest target (lowest acuity)
- Watch eye movements
- 2 out of 3 correct you’d move to the next level in a staircase procedure
- If incorrect = use a larger target
- The orthoptist is blind to the direction and they must watch the eye movement to see if it was towards the image or not
Able to talk to a patient, name a picture and encourage pointing.
At what age would you use Kay Pictures?
At 2 - 4 years old
What are the Kay Pictures?
For 2.5yo’s and over. The are based on the principle of the Snellen test where line width on Snellen letters is equal to the lines on Kay pictures. They’re single pictures that reduce in size in a flip-book. Have a matching key card.
The sizes range from 1.0 to -0.1 at 3m. There are 8 pictures in groups of 4 (except at 1.0 and 0.9 where there are 2)
Crowded and uncrowded versions. Single is 1.0 to 0.00.
New pictures chosen by 420 children as the most easily recognised
What distance should we hold Kay Pictures?
At either 3m or 6m
Which VA test for children is based on Snellen?
Kay Pictures
What VA range does Kay Pictures test?
The sizes range from 1.0 to -0.1 at 3m. There are 8 pictures in groups of 4 (except at 1.0 and 0.9 where there are 2)
Crowded and uncrowded versions. Single is 1.0 to 0.00.
What are there other tests for VA for 2+ year old’s?
Lea Symbols & Landolt C or E Charts
What is Lea Symbols?
A VA test for 2+ year olds that’s used worldwide and developed in Finland. It’s based on LogMAR and decreases by 0.1 with VA between 2.0 and 0.1 at a distance of 3m. has both single and crowded options.
What is Landolt C or E Charts?
A VA test for 2+ year olds that have C’s or E’s presented in 4 directions and the patient has to indicate the direction. Is at 6m and is based on a 5x5 grid pattern and is often used in individuals with high illiteracy rates
What do you do if a baby has very poor VA?
- See if they can fix and follow bright toys/lights.
- Use an OKN drum (optokinetic) and watch eyes move
- See if light can be followed in a dark room
What do you do if a child or adult has very poor VA?
- Move closer with the logMAR chart
- See if they can count fingers and if not see if they can do hand movements or perception of light
What are the limits of VA?
Optical factors like the ‘diffraction phenomenon’ or neural factors such as anatomical structure of retinal photoreceptors, pupil size, optical aberrations or region of retina stimulated
Light spread on the retinal image is dependent on pupil size with rays on the periphery being more aberrated (blurred)
What is the ‘diffraction phenomenon’?
A limitation to VA. When an emmetropic eye in optimal focus make a blurred circular patch surrounded by faint rings a
When it comes to VA, what is ‘minimum visible’?
The ability to perceive presence of single target e.g. face
When it comes to VA, what is ‘minimum detectable/distinguishable’?
The ability to identify features or internal arrangements in visible target e.g. eyes or nose
When it comes to VA, what is ‘minimum separable’?
The ability to detect separate spatial separation between adjacent lines with black-&-white grating tests in forced-choice preferential looking (FCPL)