wavefront for glasses or contacts?

My lasik followups consisted of a wavefront analysis and the doctor saying "I nailed your perscription, vision doesn't get any better than that".

Would a wavefront analysis be much more accurate in determining a patients vision and the proper corrective lenses, such as contacts or glasses?

Is it still common practice to sit a patient behind a machine with multiple lenses and do the "is this better than this" type of routine?

 

Did you not see a phoropter hanging in your doctor's office, and has it
really been that long ago that you've had a refraction for eyeglasses?

Traditional refraction does a perfectly fine job of correcting lower
aberrations of sphere and cylinder, which have large amplitudes and are
symmetrical with respect to the visual axis. What's left over are
termed "higher order aberrations." Most people have low amounts of
higher order aberrations. Refractive surgery, however, increases the
magnitude of higher order aberrations.

The human eye is optically limited to about 20/15 resolution. The
neural limitations are about 20/6. There are tradeoffs of having
vision corrected to this level. Wavefront generated contact lenses and
eyeglasses are indeed possible, but are impractical at this point in
time because of problems of tracking and registration.

However, simple RGP contact lenses probably do the best job of
correcting higher order aberrations, especially those that are induced
by LASIK.

DrG

 

theoretically wavefront could make a slight improvement in visual
acuity. the problem is, with wavefront eyeglasses on, if the eye moves
off axis in any direction then the wavefront correction is off center.
also, with wavefront contacts on, if the lenses move or turn (they do)
then the corrections becomes off center. in a nutshell, wavefront
lenses won't work. and practically speaking wavefront LASIK hasn't
proven to be any better than standard LASIK.

 

Not being a vision professional, I have presumed that wavefront correction
is merely a new technique for what, in optics, has been called figuring.
Figuring for lenses and mirrors has been carried out by a number of
techniques for centuries. Knife edge testing is just one of these
techniques.

To me, the term "wavefront" implies some form of interferometry. I do not
know how such interferometry is carried out in optometric practice. How is
the reference wavefront, against which wavefront error is measured,
obtained. In principle the wavefront of an ingoing beam gets focussed onto
and then scattered off of the retina to provide an outgoing wavefront
through the eye's optical system. The two wavefronts can then be compared to
measure the error. Is that the way it is done?

Bill
-- Ferme le Bush

 

A laser beam is projected into the eye and the outgoing beam is picked
up by thousands of tiny lenslets. Or, alternatively, a small beam is
measured sequentially. There is an overwhelming amount of information
available just by Googling.

DrG

 

But for that occasional total ophthalmoplegic that marches into your
office looking for really crisp vision from a new pair of eyeglasses
.... maybe we're onto something... ;-)

 

There is a good chance that had you not been wearing glasses the
blow would have blinded you; you were lucky the glasses were there and
only allowed a cut brow. Everyone playing basketball should be
wearing protective eye gear.

I would suggest, because of your age, that you see an
ophthalmologist since it has been 11 years since your last check. You
could have a blinding disease that you are unaware of.

Ted.