How to Interpret Eye Reports

Eye reports record the power and health of your eyes and they make remarks about your eyes' ability to accomplish basic tasks. The reports use a lot of abbreviations that are difficult to understand if you have never encountered them before. Spend some time learning how to read a report so that you can tell how well your eyes are functioning without having to ask a professional.

Instructions

• 1

  Familiarize yourself with basic eye terminology. OD refers to your right eye, OS is the left eye, and OU means both eyes. Right eye data is presented before left eye date, typically above the left eye number. Optometrists will test each eye separately to find out the health and ability of both right and left eyes.

• 2

  Compare your numbers to perfect numbers. We all know that 20/20 vision is the best. This refers to the way people without vision problems see at 20 feet. Therefore, 20/20 OD means your right eye is normal, and 20/20 OS means your left eye is normal.

• 3

  Learn other abbreviations on the eye report that indicate eye abilities from 20/20 down to 20/400. All the measurements are taken from 20 feet away. "CF" means you can count fingers from this distance, "HM" means you can see basic hand motions, "LP" means your light perception allows you to distinguish between lightness and darkness, and "NLP" means you have no light perception.

• 4

  Read the corrected and non-corrected data separately. Under the heading "visual acuity," you will find two numbers. The number after "sr" is your number without correction; "cc" is your number with correction. The number after "RWx" gives the exact prescription you were wearing at the time of the eye exam.

• 5

  Look for signs of basic eye health within the report and read carefully for major eye problems. If the doctor writes favorably about your Foveal reflex, it means your pupils dilate and constrict as they should. But watch out for any problems with the cornea, a healthy cornea will have the symbol "clr" meaning "clear." A healthy iris will say "rr" meaning "round and reactive."