How to determine astigmatism at home. Siemens star test for visual impairment. With parallel lines

What is the Siemens star test

Corneal pathology and refractive errors (farsightedness, myopia and astigmatism) are usually determined at an appointment by an ophthalmologist. However, there are methods of self-preliminary diagnosis, which, of course, cannot replace an appointment with a doctor. One of the most popular methods of self-diagnosis of the above diseases is called the “Siemens Star”.

This method is a test picture depicting a circle consisting of tapering strips (rays) inward from the circumference to the center of this circle, the diameter of which is 10 centimeters. 54 converging rays of black color on a white background create different illusions of perception, thanks to the decoding of which you can suspect the presence of a disease at home, after which you must definitely seek advice from a specialist for the correct interpretation of the results.

How is the Siemens star test performed?

To obtain preliminary results, several conditions must be met to conduct this exercise. Firstly, you need to look at the image with rested eyes after sleep, in the first half of the day before lunch. Secondly, the circle of the Siemens star must be 10 centimeters in diameter. To test your vision using the Siemens star test image, you can use a phone or computer (set the screen brightness to medium) or a printed image; it is the size of the star that is important. Third, there should be enough light in the room where your vision test takes place. And finally, fourth, check whether you took off your glasses or contacts so that you don’t accidentally make a mistake with the results.

Dry eyes can also slightly affect the results, since vision may “float”, because the lack of tears also affects the refractive ability of the eye, in addition, the exercise will cause discomfort. If you have symptoms of dry eyes, discomfort, a feeling of sand in the eyes, fatigue or redness, then for a correct diagnosis and choice of therapy you need to consult an ophthalmologist. For more information about some of the moisturizing drops available, you can take the Dry Eyes? Take the test and find out what might be right for you"

Interpretation of results

If you have any changes in vision, they will make themselves known when you test, with a certain distortion of the image.

With normal vision, if the exercise is performed correctly, then the star in the picture begins to blur at a distance of 2.5 centimeters from the center, but the outer lines are straight. Closer to the center, the black lines appear white and/or merge into an even circle, which, in turn, changes in diameter as the person looking at the Siemens star test picture approaches and moves away.

If you have hypermetropia (farsightedness) or myopia (nearsightedness), then the rays merge into a gray, uniform background with minor, unnoticeable separations of the black rays.

If there is astigmatism, then the image of the star is greatly distorted. Along the edges, the rays can visually thicken, change shape and contrast, and in the center a gray ellipse, oval or striped shapeless figures appear. Moreover, the stronger the distortion, the more pronounced the astigmatism will be. The Siemens star test is quite effective in determining changes in vision; this exercise is recommended by ophthalmologists around the world, which is why it is so popular among those who want to test their vision on their own.

Preparation for the test is completed, now you can proceed directly to the study. To do this, move 5 meters away from the image of the Siemens star, close your right eye for 2-3 seconds and look at the image of the star, then immediately close your left eye and look at the star with your right eye for 2-3 seconds, then open both eyes and look at the image with both eyes simultaneously .

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For any vision-related complaints, you should consult an ophthalmologist.

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With astigmatism, the shape of the cornea or lens is deformed. The light that enters the eye is refracted unevenly and the smooth sphericity of the eye is disrupted. An astigmatism test can be done at home. There is a vision test chart.

People who suffer from astigmatism see distorted images. The shape of their eyes is not perfectly round, but more like a rugby ball. Light is focused differently in planes - better in one, worse in another.

As a result, double vision occurs and vision becomes blurry, regardless of distance. Acquired astigmatism can occur for a number of reasons. Let's look at them, and also conduct a test for astigmatism at home.

Description of the disease

Astigmatism is the congenital inability of the eye to focus vision correctly. If there are no abnormalities, the light beam should be focused directly on the retina.

As this disease develops in the patient, instead of one focus point, several begin to appear, and the image itself will look slightly blurry.

The main reason for the onset of the development of this disease (improper refraction of light by the eye) is considered to be the presence of a congenital discrepancy between the cross-sectional strength of the retina and the cornea of ​​the eye.

Quite often, the formation of astigmatism in the eye is accompanied by the presence of other types of ametropia, which include myopia and farsightedness. This disease gets its name from the Greek word “stigma”, which means “point”.

With the development of astigmatism, the patient begins to see objects blurred, a rather severe headache may also appear, and the eyes get tired very quickly.

These phenomena can develop as a result of systematic overstrain of the extraocular muscles during visual work. Today, approximately one sixth of the population of our planet suffers from astigmatism, which has varying degrees of severity.

There are several types of astigmatism. The degree of severity of astigmatism directly depends on the difference that appears directly between the two main meridians of the eye - the longer the focal line itself is between the back and front focus of the eye, the lower the visual acuity will be.

Most often, the development of this pathology occurs as a result of the presence of an abnormal toric structure of the cornea itself. This form of the disease is called corneal astigmatism.

Kinds

By origin, astigmatism can be congenital or acquired. In the first case, the irregular shape of the cornea or lens is genetically determined or became so under the influence of unfavorable factors during fetal development.

Acquired astigmatism is most often a consequence of injury, a complication after surgery, or due to other eye diseases.

Depending on the anomaly of which eye structure causes functional disorders, corneal and lens (lenticular) astigmatism are distinguished. The disease can also be mixed.

The degree of astigmatism is determined by the difference in optical power on the two meridians of the eye - with the greatest and least refraction.

If they are located perpendicular to each other and within each of them the refraction remains unchanged, they speak of “correct” astigmatism.

If these parameters are violated or if the transition from one meridian to another gives an abrupt change in refraction, astigmatism is considered “incorrect.”

Based on the nature of visual impairments, the following are distinguished:

• simple hypermetropic or simple myopic astigmatism – a combination of hypermetropia or myopia in one meridian and emmetropia in the other;
• complex hypermetropic or complex myopic - a combination of hypermetropia or myopia of varying degrees in the main meridians;
• mixed - a combination of hypermetropia in one meridian and myopia in another.

Astigmatism is also classified according to the relative position of the meridians. Their position is usually assessed on a semicircular scale, on which the degree of deviation from 0° to 180° is measured counterclockwise.

There are violations:

1. direct type - the meridian with a greater refractive power is located vertically or ±30° from the vertical;
2. reverse type - the meridian with a greater refractive power is located horizontally or ±30° from the horizontal;
3. with oblique axes - both meridians lie in the zones 30°-50° and 120°-150°.

Direct astigmatism is more common in children. Older and elderly patients are more prone to reverse astigmatism.

Diagnostics also allows you to evaluate symmetry. With symmetrical astigmatism, the main meridians of both eyes are symmetrical and their sum is about 180°. If the main meridians are asymmetrical or their sum differs from 180°, they speak of an obasimetric type of violation.

It is worth noting that mild astigmatism (up to 0.5 diopters) can occur in completely healthy people. It is physiological. Functional impairment of this degree is a natural reaction to fatigue, stress, and general weakness.

Also, small degrees of astigmatism are inherent in children during the newborn period. It usually goes away by the first year of life and does not affect visual acuity in any way.

Causes

The main reasons for the appearance of this pathology include the following factors:

• injury to the organs of vision;
• constant heavy strain on the eyes;
• keratoconus;
• complication of infectious lesions of the cornea;
• complications after eye surgery.

In ophthalmology, all cases of acquired astigmatism are considered pathological, regardless of the reasons for its development, and require mandatory treatment: contact correction or other methods of therapy are used.

In adults, acquired astigmatism is considered a complex type of this ophthalmological pathology, since with the development of the disease along one main meridian, an uneven change in refractive power occurs.

It is customary to distinguish three stages of development of acquired astigmatism:

1. mild astigmatism: no more than 3 diopters;
2. average astigmatism: from 3 to 6 diopters;
3. high astigmatism: more than 6 diopters.

Symptoms

This pathology of the visual organs can occur at any age. When reading, a person may confuse letters or rearrange them; Distant objects appear fuzzy and blurry.

One of the signs of acquired astigmatism is discomfort in the eyes.

Patients can contact an ophthalmologist with the following complaints:

• headache;
• discomfort in the area of ​​the brow ridges;
• fast fatiguability;
• feeling of sand in the eyes.

Patients with an acquired form of astigmatism are characterized by intolerance to glasses, so they require frequent replacement.

The symptoms of acquired astigmatism are not pronounced, so at the initial stage of development of the disease, which is expressed by visual impairment, they may not be noticed.

Only by carefully monitoring one’s own health can a person notice a slight blurring of vision.

Most people perceive this sign of acquired astigmatism as normal eye fatigue.

Loss of clarity of vision is a serious reason to consult an ophthalmologist. You should also be wary if there is a split in the visualized object, pain and redness of the eyes.

Diagnostic methods

If you examine your vision for its acuity and conduct an astigmatism test, doctors most often use the examination using the following tables, special equipment and tests.

Sivtsev’s table is a set of printed signs that allow you to determine the patient’s visual acuity.

Diagnosis of astigmatism using the Sivtsev table involves conducting a test according to the following scheme - it is placed on the wall of a well-lit room, they move away at a distance of 5 m, cover one eye, and read the visible lines with the other. In the future, the same manipulations are carried out with the second eye.

Orlova's table is a text consisting of lines with pictures of different sizes, which gradually decrease from line to line, towards the bottom.

It is considered normal if a child or adult sees the signs and their correct location from a distance of 5 meters between the patient and the picture.

Visometry is a vision test with and without correction, carried out by a specialist in an ophthalmology office. If we are talking about a vision test with correction, then the patient closes one eye, but for the second, a special lens is selected, taking the patient’s own sensations as a basis.

At the same time, a person looks at tables with optical types of signs.

Skiascopy is an instrumental method of a highly specialized specialist that allows one to determine the ability of the pupil to refract light streams. This method allows you to determine astigmatism quite accurately - during the examination, the doctor uses the method of shadow tests and specific lenses.

The latter are placed in a special ruler stand and a flashlight is located on the side of which at eye level. The essence of the study itself is to observe how a shadow appears when a beam of light is directed into the eye - it is often used to examine small children who do not yet speak, as well as mentally retarded patients.

Computer refractometry – if there is a question about how to determine this or that pathology, eye disease, including astigmatism. A pupil-dilating composition is first instilled into the eyes and the fundus is then examined using refractometers and an infrared signal reflected from it.

Tests to determine astigmatism

Using a Siemens star

The most informative and accurate test is to look at a picture of a Siemens star, with rays of the same color and size, diverging in equal directions, with each eye separately.

If there is no pathology, then a healthy patient sees:

1. clear lines will gradually blur;
2. a gray background will begin to form in the middle of the star;
3. the lines in the center will gradually become clearly visible, but gradually become surrounded by white and appear to be a circle;
4. When the distance between the eyes and the drawing changes, in a patient with good vision the center of the circle will change in size.

With astigmatism, a person will see an oval or other shape in the image. If you manage to diagnose the problem yourself, do not self-medicate; be sure to consult a specialist.

With diverging rays

To do this, simply close one eye with your hand, and with the other look at the picture, which depicts rays diverging in different directions, reminiscent of a watch dial. Carry out these manipulations with the other eye - you can make a preliminary diagnosis if you perceive the same picture differently with each eye separately, with the following changes:

• doubling or tripling the number of rays;
• some lines will be darker, others will appear lighter;
• certain lines will be clearly expressed, some of them will be blurred.

Parallel lines

Testing is carried out in bright, preferably daylight, light - just look separately with your right and left eyes at a picture with drawn lines located horizontally and vertically.

If the patient sees them equally black and clear, there are no deviations from the norm, but if you see a distortion of the picture, the lines are gray, there is an astigmatic disorder in vision.

How to make a Sivtsev table yourself?

Print

If you need to check your visual acuity, you can easily take an online vision test on the Internet. But in many cases it is much more convenient to have a full-size Sivtsev table at home.

Using such a table, you can not only check your vision at any convenient time, but also perform special exercises to improve it (for example, using the Bates method or the method of distant microfogging by A.I. Dashevsky).

To make your own life-size Sivtsev table, you will need: a regular laser printer, three sheets of A4 paper, glue or tape. A file with a table in pdf format, which will need to be printed, can be downloaded here.

To ensure that your homemade vision test table is as close in quality as possible to the Sivtsev table that every ophthalmologist uses, use high-quality paper (matte, without a yellowish tint).

In addition, a laser printer does not always cope well with the task of uniformly filling printed characters with black ink. This printer drawback can be corrected by additionally tinting the table letters with ink or a black marker.

When printing a pdf file with a table, it is important to make sure that the print is at 100% scale (life-size).

This is displayed differently in different programs in the print settings: for example, in Adobe Reader the “Size Options” parameter should be set to “Actual size”, and in Foxit Reader “Scaling Type” should be set to “None”.

Also check that the paper size selected for printing is A4 (not Letter) and the page orientation is Landscape.

Distortions in the scale of a table when printed are easy to detect. To do this, just use a ruler to measure the height and width of the letters. The width and height of each letter of the Sivtsev table must be the same.

The height (width) of the letters of the first line is 70 mm, the second - 35 mm, the tenth - 7 mm. Make sure this is the case.

Carefully glue or tape the printed 3 parts of the table together. Then we fix the finished table on a vertical surface (wall, cabinet, etc.), taking into account that the vision test should be carried out from a distance of 5 m.

It is advisable that line 10 of the check table be located at eye level.

Eyesight check

The natural illumination of the table, even at the same time of day, is highly dependent on the weather. To eliminate these weather fluctuations, always work with Sivtsev’s table, lighting it, for example, with a table lamp with a 40 W bulb.

Direct the light of the lamp onto the table so as to achieve uniform illumination.

On Sivtsev’s ophthalmological table, to the left of each line, the value of D is indicated - the distance in meters from which the letters in this line are read if visual acuity is normal, that is, equal to 1.0.

But to the right of each line is the value of V (in conventional units), which is visual acuity, determined from a distance of 5 meters.

We should not forget that visual acuity is determined separately for each eye. To do this, cover one eye with the palm of your hand or a flat screen made of opaque material (without squinting your eyes!). It takes 2-3 seconds for the tested eye to recognize a specific letter.

It is accepted that your visual acuity is complete if when reading lines with V=0.3-0.6 you made no more than one error, and in the case of lines with V>0.7 - no more than two.

Determined in this way, your visual acuity is the value of V corresponding to the last of the lines in which the number of errors did not exceed the norm.

Some people are afraid that they are farsighted if they see more than 10 lines. This is wrong! This is a rare case in today's times of visual acuity exceeding the average statistical value of the norm. This type of vision is often called eagle or telescopic vision.

There is no need to panic if it turns out that your vision on a particular day has become worse than usual. Visual acuity greatly depends on your mental state. Negative emotions and stress disrupt the normal functioning of the visual system, which leads to temporary visual impairment.

It is enough to rest well or do exercises that relax your eyes and psyche, and your vision will return to normal.

Treatment

Definition of disease

This disease is characterized by an unusual shape of the cornea. A healthy visual organ has a surface in the form of a sphere, but with astigmatism this shape is disrupted. Depending on the direction, the organ of vision has unequal curvature. As a result, the patient does not distinguish between smooth and straight lines; for him they are distorted or blurred. This affects vision quite seriously.

With astigmatism, a person sees straight lines as curved or crooked. The sphericity of the eyeball is impaired.

Types of tests for Astigmatism

There are several most popular tests for astigmatism. All of them will help you understand whether you have this disease or not. It is important to carefully consider this issue; take each test several times to make sure the results are certain.

Diverging Beam Test

To take this test, cover one eye with your hand. Now look at the image, it looks like the dial of a regular watch, but instead of the usual numbers, it uses a degree measure of angles. Repeat the same procedure with the other eye.

Diverging beam test for astigmatism

Astigmatism will be detected if the image is perceived differently in each eye. You will notice the following:

• There are more rays. About two or three times.
• Some lines became lighter, while others acquired a darker shade.
• Some lines will be clearly visible, while others will blur and become cloudy..

Parallel lines

An important factor when passing this test is bright daylight. You will see a picture with lines that are parallel to each other. Some are vertical, others are horizontal. You need to look one at a time, with each eye.

“Straight lines” test to determine astigmatism

Astigmatism will be absent in a person who sees all lines in black, without changes in shades. If the lines are irregularly shaped, distorted, or have a gray tint to the lines, a person is diagnosed with Astigmatism.

Siemens star

This test is recognized as one of the most accurate and correct. The image of the so-called Siemens star has lines equal to each other in all respects. They also diverge in the same direction. Look at them with each eye in turn. If there are no violations, then your eyes will see the following:

People suffering from Astigmatism will see a different shape, such as an oval.

If you find out that you have Astigmatism while taking tests, consult your doctor.

Clinical researches

To protect yourself from complications of this disease, a specialist often prescribes glasses. WITH It is worth considering that only astigmatism above 1 diopter can be a reason to wear glasses.

They invented special lenses called astigmatic lenses. They are better than glasses. This is due to the fact that the lens forms a single whole with the eye and does not distort the image. If the astigmatism is small, then they are often limited to night lenses.

A technique called laser vision correction is increasingly being used to correct this disease. The good thing about the procedure is that it eliminates the disease almost instantly, leaves no traces, and is carried out very quickly under drip anesthesia. Patients say that they observe the first changes within a few hours, and complete recovery occurs no later than a week.

If the astigmatism is in a very strong form, then the person is inserted. This method is also used when it is impossible to carry out a laser procedure.

There are many ways to get rid of this disease. The specialist will prescribe the best one for you.

For Astigmatism and after procedures for its treatment, you must adhere to the following rules.

The Siemens Star is a circle with a diameter of 10 centimeters, formed by converging 54 black rays on a white background. The rays are identical in color and size. The test will help identify refractive errors, corneal pathology, myopia, farsightedness and astigmatism.

How to conduct a Siemens star test

The test is carried out in the morning.

• Make sure that the transverse size of the Siemens star on the screen corresponds to 10 centimeters; if necessary, change the page scale.
• Make sure the room is bright
• Set the monitor screen brightness to medium values.
• remove glasses or soft contact lenses if you use them

• Move 5 meters away from the screen
• Close one eye and look at the picture for 2-3 seconds

• Close your other eye and look at the picture for 2-3 seconds
• Open both eyes and look at the picture with both eyes

Interpretation of results

• the rays begin to converge and merge at half the radius of the circle (2.5 cm from the center of the circle) and form a gray background
• all lines are straight
• in the center the black lines appear white, forming a clear circle
• the diameter of the circle changes as the distance to the image changes

Astigmatism

• The lines thicken, change contrast and bend.
• The greater the astigmatism, the more pronounced the changes.
• An oval, ellipse or shapeless image appears in the center of the star

Myopia (farsightedness)
- the rays merge into a gray mass.

Factors that influence the results:

• Dry eyes
• Distance to monitor
• Time of day and general condition
• Bad light

Check several times.
If the examination each time indicates the presence of pathology, make an appointment with an ophthalmologist for a consultation.