SIGHT DEFECTS
BIOLOGY
OBJECTIVES
• Explain the nature of common sight defects of vision.
• Describe the underlying causation and refractive vision
problems (myopia, hypermetropia, astigmatism, presbyopia)
• Explain corrective measures for each vision problem.
• Illustrate diagrams to aid in the explanation of some common
eye defects such as myopia and hypermetropia.
THINK ABOUT IT:
• What if the entire world was blind?
• How different would such a world be?
• What sights would you miss the most?
• What activities would be more difficult?
• Which would be impossible?
• Just how does the eye help us see anyway
EYES- OUR WINDOWS TO THE WORLD!
Spectacles
?????
WHY SO
????
SIGHT DEFECTS
• Human eyes do not always work perfectly and many
people cannot see properly. We say they have sight
defects. Sight defects are caused by any condition that
prevents proper focusing of light on the retina. A
faulty focusing mechanism may be caused by a
number of factors, such as the shape of the eyeball or
hardening of the lens.
• Some common sight defects
are hypermetropia, myopia,
presbyopia, cataract,
astigmatism and glaucoma.
THE NORMAL EYE
In a normal eye , light
passes through the
cornea , and the image
is focused by the lens
on the retina
EMMETROPIA (PERFECT SIGHT)
An eye is said to be
emmetropic when
an image is perfectly
focused on the
foveal point of the
retina
Causes of Refractive
Errors:
❖Irregularities in the shape of
cornea
❖Abnormal size or shape of
eyeball itself
❖inability of the lens to focus
WHAT IS THE DIFFICULTY HERE????????
MYOPIA- NEAR-SIGHTEDNESS (REFRACTIVE ERROR)
• Light rays of images focus in front of the retina rather
than directly on the retina. Generally, this allows you to
see near objects somewhat clearly, but distant objects will
appear more blurred.
CAUSES OF MYOPIA
• Eyeball is longer than normal,
• your cornea too curved,
• or your lens too thick
CORRECTION OF MYOPIA
• The nearsighted eye is assisted by the use of a diverging
(concave) lens. A diverging lens will serve to diverge light
before it reaches the eye. This light will then be converged
by the cornea and lens to produce an image on the retina.
MYOPIC EYE-IMAGE FORMATION
CAN YOU SEE PROPERLY ?????
HYPERMETROPIA – LONG SIGHTEDNESS (
REFRACTIVE ERROR)
• Light rays focus beyond the retina instead of on it.
Generally, this allows you to see distant objects somewhat
clearly but near objects will appear more blurred.
CAUSES OF HYPERMETROPIA
• Eyeball is shorter than normal
• your cornea is not curved enough (too flat),
• or your lens are too thin
CORRECTION OF HYPERMETROPIA
• The farsighted eye is assisted by the use of a converging
(convex) lens. This converging lens will refract light before
it enters the eye and subsequently decreases the image
distance. By beginning the refraction process prior to light
reaching the eye, the image of nearby objects is once
again focused upon the retinal surface.
HYPERMETROPIC EYE – IMAGE FORMATION
HYPERMETROPIC EYE – RAY DIAGRAM AND
CORRECTION USING CONVEX LENS
PRESBYOPIA – LACK OF ACCOMMODATION
(REFRACTIVE ERROR)
• Presbyopia, progressive form of farsightedness that
affects most people by their early 60s. The power of
accommodation of the eye decreases with ageing. Most
people find that the near point gradually recedes.
• Lens becomes unable to change shape and constricts to
focus on close images, harder to accommodate objects at
different distances.
CAUSES OF PRESBYOPIA
• Caused by age-related process. As we get older our ciliary
muscles loses flexibility and stiffens; also the lens get
harder and less elastic.
CORRECTION OF PRESBYOPIA
• Converging (convex) lens are usually used but eyeglasses
with bifocal lens are the most common correction for
presbyopia. This is because persons might suffer from
short-sightedness and presbyopia. Bifocal eyeglasses have
diverging lens at the top of the lens and converging lens at
the lower part of the lens
ASTIGMATISM – REFRACTIVE ERROR
• Eye cannot focus an object’s image on a single point on
retina.
• This can change the way light passes, or refracts, to your
retina. This causes objects at any distance to appear
blurry, fuzzy, or you may have distorted vision.
• a person cannot simultaneously focus on both horizontal
and vertical lines.
CAUSE OF ASTIGMATISM
• The surface of the lens or cornea being curved irregularly.
CORRECTION OF ASTIGMATISM
• Glasses with special cylindrical lenses are the most
common ways to correct astigmatism. Very often the
cylindrical lenses for correcting astigmatism are combined
with lenses used to correct myopia or hypermetropia that
may accompany astigmatism.
CATARACT
THIS PREVENTS LIGHT FROM PASSING CLEARLY THROUGH THE LENS,
CAUSING SOME LOSS OF VISION
CAUSE OF
CATARACT
• Cataracts occur when
there is a build-up of
protein in the lens that
makes it cloudy. This
may be as a result of
age, chronic exposure
to UV, or due to trauma.
TREATMENT OF
CATARACT
• Persons will be prescribed
appropriate spectacles or in
cataract surgery, the lens
inside your eye that has
become cloudy is removed
and replaced with an
artificial lens (called an
intraocular lens, or IOL) to
restore clear vision.
GLAUCOMA
• Elevated eye pressure is due to a
buildup of a fluid (aqueous humor) that
flows throughout your eye. This
increased pressure can damage the
optic nerve. The sufferer experiences
painful and inflamed eyes, and a halo is
seen around objects.
• Sufferer may experience sightless areas in the field of
vision.
• This fluid normally drains into the front of the eye
(anterior chamber) through tissue (trabecular meshwork)
at the angle where the iris and cornea meet. When fluid is
overproduced or the drainage system doesn't work
properly, the fluid can't flow out at its normal rate and
pressure builds up.
CAUSE OF
GLAUCOMA
• The eye’s inability to
drain fluid efficiently,
resulting in a buildup of
fluid in front of the lens.
TREATMENT OF GLAUCOMA
• Glaucoma is primarily treated with oral medications and
topical eye drops, which are intended to reduce the
pressure of the eye. If these medications fail to work,
several laser-assisted surgical treatments can slow down
or even halt its spread.
Contact Lenses:
Are transparent materials that are
fitted against the interior surface of
the cornea. This lenses are held in
place by a thin layer of liquid (tears)
that fills the space between the
contact lens and anterior surface of
the eye.
HOW DOES IT WORKS?
• The refraction of the cornea-lens system of the eye is
neutralized.
• The refraction is done by the anterior surface of the
contact lens.
ADVANTAGES
• It turns with the eye and thus gives a broader field of
vision
• Has very little effect on the size of the object the user
sees. Because the glasses are placed several centimeters
in front of the eye, it affects the size of he image, resulting
in slightly bigger or smaller images
SNELLEN
CHART
• A Snellen chart is an eye
chart used by eye care
professionals and others to
measure visual acuity. Snellen
charts are named after the
Dutch ophthalmologist Hermann
Snellen who developed the chart
in 1862.