Additional Fitting Tips on Assessing Vision and Making Adjustments

The following assessments can be combined with Snellen acuity test to help you understand where your patients are, and where they’d like to be with their near and distance vision.

• Near smart phone assessment: Smart phones have become the universal functional vision assessment. If a patient can see what’s on their phone, it’s likely they can see 95% of what they need to throughout the day.
• Distance office assessment: Have your patient take a walk around your practice after your initial examination. If they have taken a lap and are happy with what they are seeing distance-wise, you’ve reached your goal.
• Binocular Over-Refraction Test: In an open space with a binocular, have your patient look at the 20/25 distance chart and:

1. Put the +1.00 trial lens in front of their left eye
2. Using ± flippers over the right eye, have your patient star out with +0.25 lens to see if it makes their vision better or worse
3. Then, have them try the +0.50 lens to see if that makes their vision better or worse
4. If neither the +0.25 or +0.50 improves their vision, then you can consider using the -0.25. Just be careful not to introduce too much minus
5. Next, switch eyes and with the +1.00 lens over the right eye, repeat the same process

Reversed Lens Check: Sometimes, patients’ vision problems are the result of a reversed lens. Using the inversion indicator, take a quick peek to make sure the lens is in proper orientation before doing any problem solving.