Adult & Senior Eye Exams

Your Eye Health Matters

By the time you’ve reached your early 20s, your eyes have fully matured, and they stop growing. However, this doesn’t mean that they can’t still change over time. Consider cataracts—they aren’t caused solely by aging but are age-related and more common over 40.

Regular eye exams as an adult should be part of your healthy aging routine. Early detection and diagnosis of various eye issues is beneficial in most cases. Contact us today and book your next eye exam.

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The Importance of Eye Exams

Many eye conditions, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) or cataracts, may begin developing with little to no symptoms. Not every eye problem is going to result in vision loss or complications, but most of them benefit from earlier interventions.

The American Optometric Association recommends that adults and seniors receive a comprehensive eye exam every 1 to 2 years, depending on their age and risk factors. Annual exams are typically recommended for adults 65 and older. And every 2 years for adults between 18 and 64.

It’s important to note that these are minimum recommendations. Your family eye doctor takes your overall eye health and medical history into account when recommending your exam frequency.

What’s Included in an Eye Exam?

A comprehensive eye examination shouldn’t be confused with a simple vision screening. Comprehensive eye exams take much more into account than simply determining how well you see. Let’s review some things your eye doctor may include in the examination.

Medical History

An initial or new patient exam will include a much more complete line of personal and family history questions. The eye doctor may ask about things like a previous diabetes or high blood pressure diagnosis.

The questions focus more on whether there have been any changes in your health if you’re seeing your eye doctor for a routine comprehensive eye exam. So, this portion of your appointment may be shorter in follow-up appointments if there have been no changes.

Visual Acuity

You’ve probably heard the term “20/20 vision.” This refers to the measurement of visual acuity or how well you can see at a distance. Many eyeglasses or contact lens corrections’ aim is to bring your vision as close to 20/20 as possible. During your comprehensive eye exam your eye doctor will measure your visual acuity.

Eye Diseases & Conditions

When the doctor examines your eyes, they account for any increased risk you may have for various eye diseases or conditions. This is one reason why many comprehensive exams include a period of questions about your medical and eye history.

Then as they examine your eyes, they can pay attention to high-risk parts of your eye, if there are any. While doing this, they can ensure your eye’s overall health is good. For example, dry eye disease becomes more common in older adults.

Refractive Errors

You’ve probably heard the terms “nearsighted” or “farsighted” before. These terms describe a few refractive errors—myopia and hyperopia. And astigmatism is another common refractive error.

One thing these errors share is that they all affect the shape of some part of the eye. In turn, causing blurry vision at various distances, depending on the error.

An interesting thing to note is that even if someone has 20/20 vision, they could still have some blurry vision from astigmatism or another refractive error. This makes is all the more important to make sure you’re staying on top of annual eye exams.

Book Your Next Exam

Caring for your eyes is a lifelong process and your eye doctor is your partner on that journey. Contact our professional team today. We’ll get you in to see Dr. Parks in our family-friendly clinic.

Book an Exam