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WHAT TO EXPECT DURING YOUR NEXT EYE EXAMBy Sylvia Hargrave, MD FACS The Hargrave Eye Center
EYE EXAMS?A comprehensive eye exam canbe more intense than an averagevisit to the doctor, so while it isimportant for your health, it canbe a bit daunting and surprisingfor some patients. Have a look atwhat you can expect during yournext comprehensive eye exam!
Medical History
Your exam will begin by filling out a medical
history and talking to your ophthalmologist
about any symptoms that you might be
experiencing. The doctor may ask you
questions about medications that you take,
any previous prescriptions for contact lenses
or glasses, your job, your hobbies, and more
to learn about factors that affect your vision.
Vision Tests
Next on the agenda are a series of visual acuity
tests to determine the sharpness of your vision.
Your ophthalmologist may use a Snellen Chart—
the instantly-recognizable diagrams with letters of
various sizes—and ask you to read the text until
you can no longer see it.
The ophthalmologist may also conduct a color
blind test to see if you have a color vision
deficiency.
Eye TestsBeyond testing your vision, your
ophthalmologist will also test how well your
eyes work together, and the simplest way to
do so is through the cover test in which the
doctor will “cover” one eye at a time and ask
you to focus on an object across the room
and then an object nearby.
Other exams the ophthalmologist may
perform include eye motility tests to see
how quickly your eyes can follow a moving
object, depth perception tests, and more.
Tests for Diseases
With a slit-lamp test, the doctor can see
structures in your eye ranging from the cornea to
the retina and optic nerve at the back of the eye to
look for diseases such as diabetic retinopathy,
macular degeneration, cataracts, and others. In
addition, a “puff of air” test, also known as a non-
contact tonometry test, looks for glaucoma by
measuring the open eye’s resistance to a small
puff of air.
