What is Blindness?
Legal blindness is a visual acuity of not greater than 20/200 in the better
eye with best correction or a visual field of less than 20 degrees. Legal blindness can mean tunnel vision, no central vision,
cloudy or extremely blurred vision, seeing shadows or no vision at all.
What does 20/200 mean?
A person with normal visual acuity can see an object clearly, at 200 feet;
a legally blind person must be 20 feet or closer to see the same object.
Many types of visual impairments are caused by conditions such as:
diabetic
retinopathy, glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa,
cataracts and macular degeneration. Blind people succeed in the workplace because of
assistive technology, special equipment that compensates for various types of
vision loss.
Low vision aids are instrumental in maximizing residual vision, not only for work, but also
for leisure, personal, and educational pursuits. Some low vision solutions involve magnification,
a change of lighting, and increased contrast of print or an image to
its background. More
complex solutions such as electronic magnifiers, telescopic lenses
and adaptive
computer software are common.
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