What does the patient see?

When we examine patients, we are looking at their eyes and their pathologies from the outside seeing in. We can get some idea as to the visual obscuration caused by a cataract by seeing how our view of the retina is distorted when looking through it. But this may not accurately reflect what the patient actually sees. With retinal disease, it is even more difficult to understand what visual symptoms are seen by the patient.

Some famous artists were known to have ocular pathology: Claude Monet suffered from cataracts and Edgar Degas likely had a form of macular degeneration. These conditions significantly affected the work of these artists, and when looking at a timeline of their work, we can see progressive deterioration of details, colors and forms.

Uday Devgan

Patient with nuclear cataracts

Recently, I had two patients who have experience in graphic arts and computer simulations, and each made me photographs to show the effect of their ocular conditions.

The first patient had moderate nuclear cataracts that decreased her visual acuity to 20/50. What was most striking is that measuring Snellen letters, which are high contrast and monochrome, did not accurately reflect the full decline in the patient’s vision. The most noticeable change was the color spectrum and the transmission of certain hues, particularly blues and whites.

Click here to read the full publication exclusive, Back to Basics, published in Ocular Surgery News U.S. Edition, October 25, 2014.