Eye injuries: 3 things to know

On Behalf of | Aug 10, 2020 | Motor Vehicle Accidents |

Eye injuries are one of several serious conditions that follow a bad accident. The nature of the impairment will of course depend on the precise nature of the injury and its severity.

In this post, we discuss three important things to know about degrees of vision impairment.

The most widely used test for vision acuity is that of the Snellen Eye Chart.

According to the American Federation for the Blind, this chart with 11 rows of decreasingly small letters that you see every time you go to your eye doctor for a vision test.

“20/20” vision is still defined as perfect vision.

When you have 20/20, aka perfect, vision, you can read the chart’s eighth line from 20 feet away. When you have 20/20 corrected vision, you can still read the eighth line from 20 feet away, but you need to wear your prescription glasses or contacts in order to do so.

If, on the other hand, line three the lowest line you can read, with or without corrective lenses, you have 20/70 vision. What this means is that you must stand 20 feet away to see something that a person with 20/20 vision can see standing 70 feet away from it.

The definition of “legally blind” is based on the Snellen scale. 

Surprisingly enough, “legal blindness” represents a government term, not a medical term. It means you have 20/200 vision or less in one or both eyes using the Snellen Eye Chart. If your eye care professional uses one of the newer vision testing charts rather than the Snellen, legal blindness means that you have less than 20/100 vision in one or both eyes.