Your eyes and vision are vital to your daily life and overall well-being. Routine eye checkups allow you to monitor your eyesight and catch health problems early. If you need an eye exam in Las Vegas, Wellish Vision Institute has you covered. We offer comprehensive eye exams to evaluate every aspect of your eye health and vision.
Comprehensive Medical Eye Exams
If you’ve ever needed a prescription for contact lenses or glasses, you’ve likely had a routine optical exam to assess your vision. A comprehensive eye exam — also known as a medical eye exam — goes beyond a basic vision test to evaluate the overall health of your eyes. This thorough assessment lets your eye doctor screen for diseases, detect vision changes, and learn more about your medical history.
During your comprehensive eye exam, your optometrist will perform a series of painless tests, including:
- Eye Dilation Exam: The doctor will use eye drops to temporarily enlarge your pupils and examine the structures in the back of your eyes.
- Visual Acuity Test: You’ll read letter charts to measure the sharpness of your distance and near vision.
- Refraction Test: While our office does not sell glasses or contacts, our medical staff will perform a refraction test in order to determine the strength and focus of your eyes. Those results will help determine your treatment in case surgery is recommended to correct your vision.
- Color Blindness Test: You’ll look at images made up of colored dots to determine if you have color blindness.
- Eye Cover Test: Each eye is briefly covered to test its movement and alignment.
- Slit Lamp Test: The doctor uses a bright light and microscope to study the structures of your eyes.
- Tonometry: To screen for glaucoma, your eye doctor will use a small device to measure the pressure in your eyes.
This list may seem long, but most optometrists can conduct a comprehensive eye exam in an hour or less. However, the doctor may need to perform additional tests to get a complete picture of your eye health.
Who Needs a Comprehensive Eye Exam?
Everyone needs routine comprehensive eye exams throughout their lifetime, including people with perfect vision. These assessments support eye health and make it easy to identify small changes to your vision that can occur over time.
Also, your eyes are windows to your overall well-being. During comprehensive eye exams, optometrists can detect serious health conditions like diabetes — often before patients notice symptoms.
When Should I Get a Comprehensive Eye Exam?
Comprehensive eye exams have important diagnostic and preventative purposes. You should receive them throughout your lifetime, even if you don’t need contacts or glasses.
As a general rule of thumb, the American Optometric Association recommends that patients schedule a medical eye exam at these times:
- Infancy: Babies should get a comprehensive eye exam between 6 and 12 months of age and at least once between 3 and 5 years old.
- Childhood: Children aged 6 to 17 years should receive annual comprehensive eye exams.
- Adulthood: People aged 18 to 64 should schedule a comprehensive eye exam at least once every two years.
- Senior Years: People aged 65 and older should receive yearly comprehensive eye exams.
You may need medical eye exams more frequently if you have certain risk factors, such as a family history of congenital cataracts, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration. Your doctor may also recommend frequent exams if you have health conditions that can affect your eyes, including autoimmune diseases, diabetes, and heart disease.
An eye doctor can recommend the best exam schedule based on your unique needs.
Advantages of a Medical Eye Exam
- Get an individual consultation with an optometrist about your eye health
- Monitor changes in your vision
- Detect early signs of eye conditions, including diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma
- Identify systemic health issues, such as cancer, diabetes, and thyroid disease
Routine Optical Eye Exams vs. Comprehensive Eye Exams
Most optometrists offer two types of eye exams: routine optical exams and detailed medical exams.
You can receive an optical exam at many locations, such as an eyeglasses store or an optician’s office. If you schedule an optical exam at Wellish Vision Institute, our staff will conduct basic tests to evaluate your vision and eye health. We can help determine if you need to start wearing contacts or glasses or update your prescription as necessary. This type of appointment doesn’t involve eye dilation.
During a comprehensive eye exam, you’ll also have your vision tested. However, this exam involves a more extensive analysis of your eye health, including eye dilation.
Importance of Comprehensive Eye Exams
Your eyes are essential sensory organs that allow you to perceive the world around you. They make it possible for you to drive, read, gaze at the faces of your loved ones, and much more. But people often underestimate the value of routine comprehensive eye exams.
These appointments allow immediate treatment for vision problems like astigmatism, nearsightedness, and refractive errors. These changes in your eyesight often develop slowly, making them difficult to detect without a professional vision test.
Comprehensive eye exams are also one of the best ways to detect eye diseases. Your optometrist will test you for cataracts, macular degeneration, retinal tears, and other conditions. Many eye disorders are progressive, so they tend to worsen over time without treatment. Regular medical eye exams help catch these issues early, ensuring you receive prompt treatment to protect your vision.
What Insurance Do I Need for a Comprehensive Eye Exam?
Most eye doctors take medical and vision insurance. At our practice, you will only use medical insurance. You can only use one type of insurance for exam exams.
Safeguard Your Vision by Scheduling a Comprehensive Eye Exam
Don’t take your eye health for granted. Prioritize preventative care by contacting Wellish Vision Institute today to schedule a comprehensive eye exam in one of our eye care clinics in Las Vegas clinics or Henderson.
