title: Comparison of Snellen and interferometer visual acuity in an aging noncataractous population.
abstract: Using standard clinical procedures we have compared visual acuity (VA) estimates made with a hand-held white light interferometer to those obtained with a Snellen acuity chart. Fifty noncataractous patients with a mean age of 45 years (SD = 18) were tested. Snellen and interferometric acuity measures were obtained with and without refractive correction. On average, aided Snellen VA's were better (decimal acuity = 0.98) than the unaided interferometric VA's (decimal acuity = 0.67). Although we found a statistically significant p less than 0.01) correlation between unaided interferometric and aided Snellen VA's, the correlation was poor (r = 0.36). This poor correlation may account for the often observed failure to estimate postoperative aided Snellen VA with preoperative interferometric VA in cataract patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Visual Sciences, School of Optometry, Indiana University, Bloomington.
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Geddes
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bradley
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012030:Refractive Errors / Q000175:diagnosis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014787:Vision Tests / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014792:Visual Acuity