What Is A Low-Vision Specialist?

This is the doctor who can do more for the visually impaired than anyone else when it comes to coping with vision loss that is unresponsive to medication or surgery. A low-vision specialist may be an ophthalmologist or an optometrist, but his or her specialty is to equip and train the visually impaired to function as sighted, using the vision they have left.

A low-vision patient is defined as one whose vision cannot be corrected with ordinary spectacles. The low-vision specialist equips a patient with hand magnifiers or magnifying spectacles that allow the patient to read print, including the gauges or dials on shop equipment and kitchen appliances. He or she equips a person with hand-held telescopic devices or telescopes mounted in glasses that allow the patient to see more detail when viewing distant objects. If the doctor is really good, he or she will do much to neutralize some of the emotional problems that are blocking the patient's adjustment to functioning better. The specialist teaches skills like scanning and eccentric viewing that improve functional ability.

Low-vision aids do exist that a person can select for himself or herself, when following the
do-it-yourself route, however, exercise caution, because pitfalls exist when buying aids. The low-vision specialist helps people avoid these mistakes.

What Makes a "Good" Low-Vision Specialist?

All doctors are not equally competent - a truth that also applies to low-vision specialists. There is a great deal of variance in their performance. How can the visually impaired locate a good low-vision specialist? The best one can do is to give guidelines. You must then evaluate the performance of your own doctor.

Measuring the best acuity and determining the theoretical magnification needed are not always enough to produce a well-cared-for patient. Many factors control the outcome of the rehabilitation. In fact, the definition of "low-vision rehabilitation" is: Multidisciplinary vision care preceding blind training of the visually impaired to obtain maximum visual independence and social adjustment. In simpler language, this means: (1) the doctor must take the whole patient into consideration; (2) the doctor must help the patient regain as much independence as possible; and (3) the doctor must help the patient readjust to life and to his social situation under these new circumstances,

Professional care requires the doctor to become very involved and spend a lot of time discussing the condition of the vision and discussing what could be accomplished, along with how and why certain treatments would or would not work. For the low-vision specialist to prescribe properly and train properly, he must do the counseling and train the patient himself.