When the doctor told you that you needed bifocals, you may have protested (verbally or only mentally) that you weren’t that old. Actually, you probably weren’t, even though a few grey hairs may have started to show up here and there. The average person begins to need bifocals in their 40s, and then only if he or she does reading or close work. Five hundred years ago when most people where illiterate and/or occupied with farming, bifocals were not necessary. (The life span was much shorter, too.) Today, they are almost indispensable. Read the rest of this entry »
When you get glasses for the first time, or when there is a change in your prescription, it will upset your visual world. Certainly you can expect clearer sight and more comfortable vision, but along with that you will notice some strange side effects. Objects may appear larger or smaller, closer or farther, and familiar shapes may be deformed. Don’t hit the panic button. These effects are only temporary and within a few days you should be completely unaware of them. But why the problem in the first place? There are several reasons. Read the rest of this entry »
Since most of the organs of the body are paired, you might have taken your two eyes for granted. If you stop to think about possible reasons, you might decide that with two eyes you can get a wider field of view to the sides. True enough. But to have a really terrific field of view, wouldn’t you design the system to have one eye mounted on a finger-like stalk atop your head to see all around? Wouldn’t it be nice to have the ability to see behind your back? The way it is now, there has to be a elaborate neck joint complex so that you can turn your head to get a reasonable near-360 degree panorama. Yet, nature evolved into our present set-up. Why? Read the rest of this entry »
You were probably not too thrilled the first time you were told you needed glasses, but as long as you must wear them, why not learn how they work? Obviously, glasses are made up of lenses and a frame. The frame can be made of plastic, metal, or a combination of the two; its function is to keep the lenses positioned in front of your eyes. The part that sits on the bridge of your nose Ls called, quite logically, the “bridge,” and the handles which it on your ears are called “temples.” Read the rest of this entry »
Color vision is routinely screened during the regular examination to detect any gross color deficiencies. For occupations requiring an excellent “color sense” such as printer, art director, stage-scenery designer, cloth dyer, etc., or for the detection of an early stage of a disease, more extensive color tests are administered. One such test requires arranging a series of round, colored discs in the correct sequence of hues. The most sophisticated color test, the anomaloscope, used mostly in research, challenges the person to mix primary green and red light sources together to match a standard yellow light. Read the rest of this entry »
Normal vision is made up of two integrated systems—accurate, sharp sight when looking directly at an object coupled with a general awareness of the scene around you. To get the idea, do this simple experiment: Look straight ahead, hold your arms out at shoulder level and wriggle your fingers. With good peripheral vision you should be aware of the motion of your fingers. (This also illustrates that at the extreme edges of your field of vision, the main attention-getter is motion.) Read the rest of this entry »
This would seem to be the opposite of the dry eye, but in reality, sometimes is a reaction to the dry eye. Older people are commonly the victims, and the doctor must differentiate between an eye “feeling” wet vs. tears actually running down the cheeks. Read the rest of this entry »
How long has the doctor been in practice?
If you have a choice, pick someone with more experience. Read the rest of this entry »
We often take for granted the correct posture of a dancer during a performance, but movement instructors know that this is no accident. Correct body alignment is constantly and consciously practised. Read the rest of this entry »
As a student of art, I learned that when drawing a portrait of someone it was important to capture the gesture of the pose. This meant you had to see, and draw, how the action of the pose was expressed by the angle and weight of the body. Read the rest of this entry »
