Retinal Examination Instruments – Part One

A complete retinal examination involves the use of many pieces of equipment and several instruments. During your thorough examination in Phoenix, many diagnostic tests will be performed. These are some of the instruments used in our office with descriptions of what they do:

Digital Retinal Camera: A digital retinal camera, also called a fundus camera, is used to produce high quality diagnostic images of the interior of the eye.

Phoropter: A phoropter is an instrument that allows your doctor to precisely determine your numerical prescription for glasses or contacts. Typically, the patient sits behind the phoropter and looks through it at an eye chart. Your doctor then changes lenses and other settings while asking the patient for feedback on which settings give the best vision. This is repeated with several different settings until your exact prescription is found.

Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscope: A Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscope is an instrument used for examining the interior structures of the eye, especially the retina, consisting of a mirror that reflects light into the eye and a central hole through which the eye is examined and is worn on the doctor’s head.

Auto-refractor: An auto-refractor is a computerized instrument used to measure a patient’s refractive error. This is achieved by measuring how light is changed as it enters a person’s eye. The automated refraction technique is quick, simple and painless. The patient takes a seat and places their chin on a rest. One eye at a time, they look into the machine at a picture inside. The picture moves in and out of focus as the machine takes readings to determine when the image is on the retina. Several readings are taken which the machine averages to form a prescription.

Retinal Examination Instruments Part Two to be continued…