EYE EXAMINATIONS

Eye Q optometrists use a wide variety of tests and procedures to examine your eyes.

These tests range from simple ones, like reading an eye chart to complex one, such as using high powered lenses to visualize tiny structures inside your eyes.

Eye Exam Individual To You– By asking you a series of questions about your occupation, lifestyle, general health, family’s general health and ocular health we can make your eye exam even more specific. It is very important to have a clear understanding of your vision needs, especially if a specific problem is the reason for your visit.

Health Examination– “Your eyes are the front of your brain and the window to your body”. From your eyes we can detect changes that may lead to the diagnosis of underlying diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and macular degeneration. Diabetes is the most common cause of blindness in the working population, so at Eye Q we do complimentary blood sugar screening.

Refraction– Using different lenses we can determine if you are near sighted (myopic), far sighted (hypermetropic), astigmatic (rugby ball shaped eyes) or presbyopic (extra magnification needed for reading due to age). Based on your answers and our observations the optometrist will fine tune the lens power until reaching your final glasses prescription.

Your Prescription Explained– The “sph” box means sphere which represents the amount of far or near sight that is present. The larger the number the stronger the lens required, and therefore the thicker the spectacle lens will be. Plus lenses are used to correct hypermetropia and minus lenses are used to correct myopia.

The “cyl” box for cylinder represents the amount of astigmatism that is present. Astigmatism is caused when the eye is not completely spherical, like a football, but shaped more irregularly, like a rugby ball. This causes the vision to be distorted for both distance and near objects. The “axis” box represents the orientation of the cylinder (from 0-180 degrees) and is the angle at which the lens needs to be set into the frame.

The “add” box is the amount of magnification that must be added to your prescription if you are presbyopic and therefore require a different strength lens for near vision tasks compared to distant ones.

Intra Ocular Pressure– This is often referred to as the “glaucoma test” but in reality is just one test used by the eye doctor to assist in diagnosing glaucoma – by dropping a yellow drop in your eye we use an instrument to check the fluid pressure in your eye.

Visual Fields– This checks the area you see in space. Imagine that the image you see of the world is made up of millions of pixels like a modern TV. This machine will make sure that all the pixels are functioning correctly. If you fail to see any of the dots, this can be an indication of a blind spot and may require further investigation by an eye specialist, ophthalmologist.

Slit Lamp Examination– This is a high powered binocular microscope that we use to examine the front structures of your eye.

Colour Vision– We screen children for colour vision defects on their first visit to us and adults should the need arise.

Stereopsis– This is a simple test to check that both eyes are working together correctly.

Ophthalmoscopy– This is the piece of equipment your optometrist uses to look at the interior of the eye, including the lens, retina and optic nerve.

Keratometer– This allows your optometrist to measure the curvature of the front the cornea. It is useful for assessing the extent and axis of astigmatism.

Blood Glucose Screening– We routinely screen over 35s for blood glucose levels using a simple finger prick test. Whilst this complimentary procedure yields results very quickly it is in no way a substitute for a full blood test, but allows us to inform our patients who may be unaware of any problems that a full blood test may be prudent. For known diabetics it allows us to ensure that the blood glucose levels at the time of examination are within normal limits ensuring an accurate glasses prescription is ascertained.