Near vision examination in presbyopia patients: Do we need good homologated near vision charts?

Abstract

Presbyopia correction is mainly concerned with the goal of regaining an uncorrected reading performance. Since historic reading charts do not provide a unique standard that is applicable for the analysis of clinical and scientific reading performance, new standardized reading charts have been developed, in order to provide reading performance analyses analogous to modern single-optotype distance acuity measurements: the Bailey-Lovie Word Reading Chart, the Colenbrander English Continuous Text Near Vision Cards, the MNREAD Charts, and the RADNER Reading Charts. The last three are also meant to measure reading speed, thus allowing detailed analysis of the reading capabilities of the patient's functional vision. Furthermore, these reading charts can be declared homologated, based on the standards that were published for reading charts by the Visual Function Committee of the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO) in 1988. Many research studies have shown that by analyzing the reading performance with homologated reading charts, valuable insight into the reading performance of patients suffering from various diseases can be obtained. These reading charts have also been successfully used in presbyopia research. It therefore seems evident that homologated, standardized reading charts facilitate not only research concerning functional vision in many fields of ophthalmology but also international communication about near visual performance. Homologated reading charts are available in almost all languages and have become a valuable tool in analyzing reading performance. We argue in this review that homologated reading charts are clearly a necessity for presbyopia research.

Keywords: Functional vision; Reading acuity; Reading charts; Reading performance; Reading speed; Reading test.

Fig. 1

RADNER Reading Charts, as exemplified by the German version (four text reading charts, a page with Landolt rings, and a page with numbers are provided in the booklet). (Original size: big issue, DIN A4 29.7 cm × 21.0 cm; small issue, DIN A5 21.0 × 14.8 cm)

Fig. 2

The Colenbrander English Continuous Text Near Vision Cards (original size: 23.0 cm × 18.0 cm). Printed with the permission of August Colenbrander

Fig. 3

Mean reading speed, based on reading acuity and mean critical print size of two different multifocal IOLs (MIOL). Forty eyes per group were investigated. Note the significant difference in the mean reading speed between the diffractive and the refractive MIOL at reading acuities ranging from logRAD 0.7 to 0.3 (n.s., not significant)