In the United States and Canada, you may be pleased to hear that you have 20/20 vision. In Europe, your practitioner may test your vision and find, to your delight, that it is 6/6 or 10/10. In either case, you may think you have perfect vision. But do you?
Not necessarily. 20/20, 6/6 and 10/10 vision (6/6 is the metric measure) only indicate how sharp or clear your vision is at a distance. Overall vision also includes peripheral awareness or side vision, eye coordination, depth perception, focusing ability and color vision.
20/20 or 6/6 vision describes normal visual clarity or sharpness measured at a distance of 20 feet, or 6 meters, from an object. If you have 20/20 vision, you can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance. Similarly, with 6/6 vision, you can see clearly at 6 meters what should normally be seen at that distance. If you have 20/100 (6/30) vision, it means that you must be as close as 20 feet (6 meters) to see what a person with normal vision can see at 100 feet (30 meters)
Why do some people have less than 20/20 or 6/6 vision?
The ability to see objects clearly is affected by many factors. Eye conditions like nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism or eye diseases influence visual acuity.
If my vision is less than optimum, what can I do?
A comprehensive eye examination by an eye care practitioner should identify causes which may affect your ability to see well. In most cases, your practitioner can prescribe glasses, contact lenses or a vision therapy program that will help improve your vision. If the reduced vision is due to an eye disease, the use of ocular medication or other treatment may be needed.
But the point is that your vision in general depents on a variety of factors one of wich is the visual acquity. These other factors can be:
- The peripheral vision, wich is the ability to see the objects that surround you.
- The coordination between your two eyes
- The sense of depht in the space
- The ability to focus on objects that are near to you
- The ability to distinguish colors
