All of medicine and healthcare is becoming increasingly technologically advanced, and eye care is on the leading edge of this progress. During your eye examination with us, we will use powerful technology to give us more knowledge about your eye health, screen for disease, and deliver higher quality care. Read on to learn about some of these instruments.
Wide Field Retinal Imaging
The retina is the tissue at the back of the eye that converts light into neural signals that travel to the brain for vision to occur. Checking the retina for any signs of underlying diseases (retinal bleeds from diabetes, for example) or weaknesses that could progress to retinal detachments is an important part of a comprehensive eye examination.
You may remember you or someone you know having drops put in the eyes to dilate the pupils so that an eye doctor could look at the entire retina in detail.
A wide field retinal camera a large part of the retina in one image, reducing the need to dilate patients whenever our optometrist wants to see further out into the periphery of the retina. An optomap can also provide hints about structures other than the retina.
For example, a cataract in the lens within the eye will show up as a dark smudge on the optomap picture. Having several images captured over different visits also helps us to track changes in your eyes over time.
Even with an optomap image, many patients still need to be dilated in order for specific parts of the eye to be looked at in maximum detail by our eye doctor. This is especially true when you are having visual symptoms that tell our optometrist that something may be wrong with the retina.
Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)
While looking at the retina or other structures in the eye can tell us a lot about your eye health, there are some things that our optometrist physically cannot see or calculate without advanced technology. This is where OCT comes in.
Instead of taking a photo of your eye, the OCT machine takes a cross sectional scan so that our clinician can look at deeper structures that are invisible to the naked eye. This is akin to, instead of simply looking at the surface of an onion, cutting the onion open to look at all the different layers.
There are many different layers in structures like the retina, choroid, and cornea within the eye, and the appearance of these tiny layers is important in determining the health of the tissue and diagnosis of any disease that may be present.
The OCT scan takes longer than the optomap photo but still only takes a few minutes. You will be instructed to look at a light with your eyes wide open and the scan will capture what it needs to.
The cornea is the clear surface in front of the colored part of the eye, called the iris. It is responsible for much of the bending or refraction of light to land on the retina and produce clear vision. A corneal topographer collects information about the curvature and elevation of the corneal surface.
Topography is important in determining which contact lenses will fit best on your eyes. It is also used as a diagnostic tool for conditions that thin the cornea and cause it to bulge, warp, and become damaged.
Similar to the OCT, the topographic scan will require you to look at a target with eyes wide open while a scan is collected. You may be instructed to look in various directions with your eyes.
Our eye doctors at EyeDocs Family Eye Care in Brookville, OH excel in prescription of glasses, contact lenses and the diagnosis of a variety of eye disese. Call our optometrists at 937-770-1265 or schedule an eye exam appointment online if you would like to learn more about the various forms of technology we use during our eye exams.
Our eye doctors, Dr. Kyle Maxam and Dr. Cara Wampler, provide the highest quality optometry services and eye exams in Brookville, Ohio.
You can schedule your next appointment with us online!
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430 Arlington Rd. Suite B | Brookville, OH 45309 | 937-770-1265
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