Why Have an Eye Examination?
Everyone in the family needs their eyes examined - at every stage of your life, there's a need to have an eye examination.
For children, regular examinations help to detect and monitor any eye changes or poor vision that could cause learning difficulties.
For adults and seniors, having an eye exam every two years allows the early diagnosis of eye health problems that can cause blindness.
They're the only eyes you'll ever have and every year, about 1500 New Zealanders lose their sight. For many of them, blindness could have been prevented if their eye health and vision had been examined regularly. For example, it's estimated that half the people with glaucoma are not receiving treatment simply because they don't know they have the disease. Glaucoma is the leading cause of preventable blindness in New Zealand.
We recommend that you have your eyes examined every two years, or as recommended by your optometrist, depending on your current eye health and vision needs. Regular trips to the optometrist aren't only for people who need vision correction. Even if your eyesight seems to be perfect, eye examinations are important because most sight threatening conditions have no symptoms at first – this is particularly true of eye problems related to diabetes and glaucoma.
What to Expect
Our optometrist will evaluate your eye health using a series of tests and evaluation procedures, which include:
- Assessing your visual history and overall health.
- Using an ophthalmoscope to establish the health of your eyes.
- A retinal photograph is taken to capture a high-quality image of your retina which enables the optometrist to monitor of the health of your eyes on an ongoing basis.
- Performing a series of tests to determine if any vision correction is required.
- Checking how well your eyes work together.
- The optometrist may need to check your peripheral vision and intraocular pressure to screen for eye conditions such as glaucoma.
- On completion of your eye examination, the optometrist will then discuss with you the best options available to correct your vision, which is usually glasses or contact lenses.