Pilot Project Effectivity Of IRAS Glare Source In Predicting Patients Sensitive To Glare With The BAT As The Standard For Outdoor Lighting.

Optometry has traditionally portrayed itself as a profession paramountly concerned with the functional aspects of patient vision. Yet, for the most part, optometrists still gauge visual systems with high contrast charts in ideally set background illuminations. Realistically, our patients maneuver in a surround of varying illuminations and consequently changing visual demands. On bright days, glare is one of the challenges our patients face. To visual normals, brightness and glare are usually only sources of discomfort or minimal hinderance. On the other hand, those with ocular abnormalities involving the media or retina may become visually disabled in the presence of bright illuminations. Outdoor lighting is of constant concern for patients with posterior subcapsular cataracts (PSC), keratoconus, and longstanding macular edema. Patient care is not complete unless we can assess the effects glare has on our light sensitive patients. A clinical system for setting a patient's sensitivity to brightness and glare in terms that we may readily understand and apply is desired. Ideally, it should predict a patient's environmental functioning when he/she is confronted with various
illumination intensities. Such a system would replace escorting the patient outdoors and subjecting him/her to the inconvenience, and the testing to the invariability of the weather. Though many optometrists depend on the the patient's subjective report to define the range of brightness sensitivity for that particular individual, a more standard approach to analysis would eliminate the need for interpretation. This investigation addresses two devices that are designed to comment on a patient's performance in the presence of glare. One is the Brightness Acuity Tester (BAT) by Mentor, and the other is the white light interferometer with glare source (IRAS/Glare). Both are now commercially available. The BAT was the first of the two instruments to be introduced and is currently gaining wide acceptance within the ophthalmological community.