Comprehensive Eye Care
What is a Comprehensive Eye Exam?
Maintaining healthy vision is essential for overall well-being and quality of life. Comprehensive eye care, including regular eye exams and timely treatment of eye conditions, is crucial for preserving clear sight and detecting potential eye problems early on.
A comprehensive eye exam is a thorough evaluation of the health of your eyes and your vision. This exam goes beyond a simple vision test to carefully inspect the overall health of your eyes.
During a comprehensive exam, your eye doctor at Georgia Eye Physicians & Surgeons will test your vision, prescribe glasses or contacts if needed, check for eye conditions, assess your eye muscles and optic nerves, and check your eye pressure. They will use specialized instruments to fully evaluate all parts of your eyes to ensure everything is healthy and working together to help you see clearly.
What Are General Vision Disorders?
Refractive errors are some of the most common vision disorders. Glasses or contacts usually help correct these issues and allow you to see things clearly without squinting, headaches, and eye fatigue.
Nearsightedness
Nearsightedness, also called myopia, is a common vision condition in which close objects appear clear, but anything farther away looks blurry. It is typically caused by the eyeball being too long from front to back or the cornea being too steep, causing light rays to focus incorrectly.
Myopia typically begins in childhood and can worsen over time. Signs include squinting to see far away, eye strain, and headaches after close work.
Glasses, contacts, and refractive surgery like LASIK can help correct nearsighted vision.
Farsightedness
Farsightedness, also called hyperopia, is the opposite of nearsightedness. It causes blurry near vision, while distance vision remains clearer.
This refractive error can happen when the eyeball is too short, or the cornea is too flat, so light rays entering the eye focus behind the retina rather than directly on it. Many children are born with slight farsightedness that goes away as they grow.
Adults experiencing emerging farsightedness may have eye fatigue and blurry reading vision. Like nearsightedness, it can be improved with prescription lenses and refractive surgery.
Astigmatism
Astigmatism is caused by an irregularly curved cornea or lens inside the eye that prevents light from properly focusing, resulting in blurred vision at any range. It is very common, along with nearsightedness and farsightedness.
Astigmatism symptoms include eye strain, headaches, squinting, and difficulty seeing details. Vision can be corrected with prescription glasses or contacts specially designed to correct astigmatism.
What Are the Different Types of Eye Exams?
The eye doctors at Georgia Eye Physicians & Surgeons offer three main types of eye exams. Each type of eye exam serves a specific purpose in ensuring the health and well-being of your eyes and vision.
New Patient Consultations
New patient consultations are performed when patients visit an eye doctor at Georgia Eye Physicians & Surgeons for the first time. During this initial visit, your eye doctor will perform a comprehensive eye examination to look for specific eye problems and establish a detailed baseline for tracking future changes in your eyes and vision.
During this exam, part of establishing a baseline of your eye health will include taking several high-resolution pictures of both the interior and exterior of the eye using fundus and external eye photography. Our staff will also assist you in filling out necessary forms and taking a thorough medical history.
Your eye doctor may also perform a test to get precise measurements for glasses and contact lenses if needed. After the exam, they will explain your diagnosis and discuss treatment options, if necessary.
Routine Vision Examinations
Routine vision exams involve vision testing and eye evaluating your eye health. These exams are performed to determine the degree of refractive errors, such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism.
They will perform a visual acuity test, which measures how well you can see at both near and far distances. If you have a refractive error, your eye doctor at Georgia Eye Physicians & Surgeons will also perform a test to determine your glasses prescription.
This is called a refraction test. Refraction can determine which prescription will help you see the clearest. Regular routine vision exams are important as your prescription can change over time.
The frequency of these exams depends on your age and personal medical history. Your eye doctor at Georgia Eye Physicians & Surgeons will tell you how often you will need to have a routine eye exam to maintain clear vision and healthy eyes.
Comprehensive Medical Eye Examinations
Many serious eye problems, like glaucoma or cataracts, develop gradually over the course of several years. Timely diagnosis of many eye conditions is crucial for preserving sight and maximizing treatment outcomes.
When caught in their initial stages, many vision-threatening conditions can be effectively managed, helping to maintain clear eyesight for years to come. During a comprehensive medical eye exam, your eye doctor at Georgia Eye Physicians & Surgeons will use a variety of tests to thoroughly examine the interior and exterior structures of your eyes.
This allows your eye doctor to evaluate the health of your eyes and, more importantly, to track subtle changes that may indicate the presence of more serious eye conditions that a general routine screening might miss. A full comprehensive medical eye exam can often also identify the earliest symptoms of medical conditions unrelated to the eyes, like multiple sclerosis, diabetes, shingles, or high cholesterol.
This type of exam can take anywhere from one and a half to two hours. In addition to the standard tests performed during a routine vision exam, a comprehensive medical examination often includes:
Since comprehensive medical eye exams typically require eye dilation, remember to bring sunglasses to your appointment to combat light sensitivity and blurry vision that you may experience for several hours after the exam.
Why are Comprehensive Eye Exams Important?
Catching eye conditions and vision issues early is crucial. That’s why comprehensive eye exams are so important, especially as part of your routine preventative healthcare.
These exams create a baseline to monitor changes in eye health over time. They also detect problems you may not notice yourself since vision can deteriorate gradually.
At Georgia Eye Physicians & Surgeons, our experienced eye care professionals will work with you to determine your optimal eye exam schedule. Your eye doctor will consider factors like age, health history, and any existing vision concerns to ensure you receive the most appropriate level of care.
