What Are Bioptic Lenses?
Bioptic telescopes, or, bioptic lenses, bioptic glasses, bioptic telescopic glasses, and bioptic telescope lenses, as they’re sometimes referred to, are like miniature binoculars that help the visually impaired, which includes those with either low vision or impaired vision (a visual impairment), see more clearly.
Bioptic telescopes attach to regular eyeglasses and can be prescribed for one or both eyes. Just like binoculars, they make images larger and, as a result, easier to see. Bioptic lenses users often say that everything looks closer — which is exactly right; however, the benefit is that it enables the bioptic telescopic glasses user to see objects much further away. For example, if an individual can only see clearly up to five feet away, a 4x-power Ocutech bioptic telescope will let them see as far as 20 feet away!
Bioptic telescopic glasses like the ones Ocutech produces can help visually impaired individuals with the following conditions:
- Reduced central vision between 20/60 to 20/300 (6/18 to 6/90)
- Tunnel vision wider than five degrees in diameter
- Low vision from eye diseases or disorders, including:
- Age-Related Macular Degeneration – involves damage to the macula, causing blurry or a complete loss of vision
- Ocular Albinism – one of many eye conditions that can give way to poor eyesight, including astigmatism and blurred vision
- Optic Atrophy – causes a gradual loss of the retinal cells that form the optic nerve potentially resulting in severe vision loss
- Nystagmus – an eye health condition that causes involuntary eye movement resulting in blurred vision
- Retinis Pigmentosa – a congenital, genetic disease affecting the retina that causes gradual decline in visual-acuity
- Stargardt’s Disease – a rare eye disease that affects the macula and retina, gradually deteriorating central vision resulting in eventual sight loss
- Strabismus – a type of eye misalignment caused by a lack of muscle control that causes one eye to deviate inward or outward while the other remains focused, giving the appearance of crossed eyes
- Retinal detachment – an eye condition that can affect peripheral vision and cause floaters to emerge
- Diabetic Retinopathy – an eye health condition affiliting diabetics that results in a buildup of eye pressure that causes damage to blood vessels around the retina, resulting in difficulties with color-vision, blind spots, and floaters often only addressable by an eye treatment such as laser surgery
- Amblyopia -a vision impairment also known as lazy-eye that has on onset in childhood that results in a weaker eye involuntarily moving outward or inward causing vision problems
- Coloboma – a congenital eye and vision condition in which some of the eye’s tissues, such as the eyelid, iris, ciliary body, optic nerve, macula, or retina are missingm causing them to have limited vision, light sensitivity, blindness and to also be more vulnerable to glaucoma, retinal detachment, and cataracts
There are countless other eye injuries and eye conditions resulting from disorders, diseases, or eye strain that may result in vision health issues and legal blindness. Vision aids like Ocutech bioptic lenses can give those afflicted with these visual impairments better vision, leading to a higher quality of life.
Why Improve Distance Vision?
Having distance vision is an important social sense. It allows us to make eye contact, read body language, and feel connected to the world around us. The loss of distance vision can adversely impact a person’s sense of independence, making them feel isolated and depressed. Studies have shown that reduced distance vision can significantly impact a person’s quality of life.
What Can Ocutech Bioptics Help Me Do?
Ocutech bioptic lenses offer individuals with low vision potential quality of life improving benefits. Some of the benefits bioptic telescope lenses offer individuals who wear them include an improved ability to see objects:
At a distance or far away: Ocutech bioptics are especially helpful for low vision individuals who are farsighted (those that an eye doctor such as an optometrist or opthamalogist has diagnosed with hyperopia), meaning they can generally see objects at a distance; however their ability to focus on and thus see ones nearby may be quite limited due to their blurry vision. Individuals with farsightedness may benefit from using bioptic lenses to view the television, see movies, or attend theater productions and also see faces, signs, blackboards in school, or shop or travel independently.
Our experience is that Ocutech wearers have even used their bioptic telescopic glasses to hike, golf, bowl, paint, fish, drive tractors, and mow the lawn. Most states in the U.S. and some other countries will allow visually impaired individuals to drive while using visual aids like a bioptic telescope.
Near or closeby: Bioptic lenses can also help you if you suffer from nearsightedness (myopia), an eye condition which often makes it challening to see objects at near and mid-range distances. Nearsighted individuals often complain of images far away being blurry or otherwise distorted despite their near vision being fine.
By using Ocutech’s Falcon Autofocus Bioptic – the world’s only self-focusing bioptic telescope lenses – or by focusing manually or using near-focus attachments for the SightScope, Ocutech bioptics can provide easy-to-use magnification, not all that different from a magnifier, microscope, or binocular-vision device, to help you see board and card games, read the computer screen, play music, and engage in many other activities.
