Measurement of the Visual Fields

What are the visual fields?

You have a wide field of view and are normally able to detect vision such as moving objects or lights at the corners of your eye. In other words your vision is not like looking through a tunnel or tube but considerably wider. Regrettably some people’s field of view narrows down so that they only see like someone looking through a tunnel or a tube.

You will be asked to look at a small screen with one eye while the other is covered. Then small dots of light will appear on the screen and you have to press a button whenever you see the dot of light. The dots of light will appear all over the screen one by one and a computer will analyse when you see it and where. The computer then prints out where you see the light dots and from this picture the specialist (optometrist) can analyse whether you have a defect in your field of view.

Ó NHS Tayside; 2006; version 1.0

Disclaimer; no liability whatsoever is accepted for information given and all such information, especially with regard to drug usage (UK version provided), must be checked with a person’s health provider.