About High Contrast Vision and Optical Aberrations
Many patients do not realize that their eyes are an imperfect optical system. As light rays from distant objects pass through the individual optical components of the eye, they are subject to being distorted by the imperfections found in the Cornea and the Crystalline Lens. These distortions that are created are referred to as aberrations. Some aberrations can create common refractive errors, such as nearsightedness or myopia , farsightedness or hyperopia and astigmatism -these are called Low Order Aberrations. Low Order Aberrations such as these that cause the more common blurring of vision can be corrected with eyeglasses or contact lenses or by conventional LASIK , PRK or Epi-LASIK.
However, sometimes even with the best glasses and contacts some people still complain about their night vision and dont like to drive at night. One of the reasons for poor night vision is the tiny imperfections, or aberrations, in their vision, which exist in addition to being simply nearsighted or farsighted. These additional tiny aberrations include chromatic aberration, spherical aberration, diffraction, curvature of field, coma, trefoils, and quadrifoils-and are collectively known as High Order Aberrations. These aberrations, which cannot be corrected with glasses or contacts, can cause disturbing problems like halos and glare with your night vision. High Order Aberrations can actually give rise to visual symptoms that we can understand and perhaps have experienced, such as:
- Starbursts Patterns of Small Lights Around Light Sources
- Haloes Circles of Light Around Light Sources
- Ghosting A Faint Duplicate of Each Object Similar to Double Vision
- Glare Intensification of Light Sources
These High Order Aberrations need to be minimized or eliminated in order to achieve the best vision correction results. By using the Wavelight Allegretto Wave Excimer Laser to perform Custom Wavefront Optimized Laser Eye Surgery, the eye surgeons at Eyecare Medical Group are able to customize each and every treatment to minimize the visual impact of these aberrations.
