How can advanced retinal scanning protect your vision?

Your eyes play a vital part in your overall health and are the key to seeing the world in all its beauty. Our optometrists are dedicated to ensuring your eye health is always the best it can be, and they do this in many ways. As we celebrate National Eye Health Week in September, let’s dive into what exactly retinal scanning is and how it can benefit your vision.

What is retinal imaging?

Retinal photography is a highly advanced technology that allows our optometrists to take a digital picture of the back of your eye. Using specialised cameras, this imaging technique provides an in-depth view of the retina, optic nerve, and blood vessels in your eyes. It is a non-invasive and efficient procedure that allows us to gain a full understanding of your eye health. From this, we can identify certain eye diseases and conditions we wouldn’t be able to detect in a regular eye exam.

Why include retinal scanning in your next eye exam?

Including a retinal scan in your regular eye examinations offers numerous benefits. With advanced retinal imaging, our optometrists can detect early signs of diseases before changes in vision occur. Conditions like cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, and glaucoma can be easily identified through retinal imaging, enabling us to plan an effective treatment. By monitoring your eye health with regular retinal scans, our optometrists can quickly identify any changes and take prompt action if needed, ensuring more effective treatment. With early detection, our optometrists play a crucial role in preserving your sight and preventing further vision deterioration. If you have a family history of eye problems or are at risk of specific eye diseases, we highly recommend a retinal scan during your exam.

Our technology

At Donovan Smith, we are committed to providing the best possible care to our patients. That’s why we have invested in the latest and most advanced technology to help monitor and protect our patients’ eye health. Our practice has several specialised pieces of equipment that they also use at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London to help detect and manage eye diseases and conditions.

The first piece of equipment we have in practice is an Optomap. This is a fast, painless and comfortable piece of technology that just requires you to simply look into the device, one eye at a time, and an image of your retina will be taken. This will then allow our optometrist to see more than 80% of your retina in one single image, while some other methods typically show only 15% of your retina at a time.

The Zeiss Clarus Ultra-Wide fundus camera is our second piece of retinal imaging equipment. With its ability to create ultrawide field images of the back of your eye, it allows our optometrist to analyse changes to your blood vessels. Using various filters, it can effectively detect issues like diabetic retinopathy and high blood pressure and is particularly crucial in cases where a patient may have a detached retina.

The Zeiss Cirrus OCT, or Optical Coherence Technology, is the final type of retinal imaging used in practice. It utilises detailed scans to capture images of the macula and optic nerve head at the back of the eye. This valuable tool helps identify and accurately assess signs of conditions like glaucoma and macular degeneration, making it an essential component in eye care.

Book yours today

The health of your eyes is important, and both regular and advanced eye exams are an essential part of maintaining your overall health. Retinal imaging is an advanced technology that adds an extra layer of security to your eye exams, helping our optometrist spot, diagnose, and track eye diseases and conditions that can threaten your vision. At Donovan Smith, we are committed to providing exceptional care to our patients, and our advanced retinal imaging equipment is just one way we can fulfil that promise. Book your appointment today at our Opticians in Brighouse and allow us to help you maintain excellent eye health.