When is legally blind

All About Eyes can connect you with a doctor who understands the needs of patients with low vision. We have many locations, so search for the office closest to you to get started and call to set an appointment. Search for:. If you have questions, contact All About Eyes for more information. What Is Legal Blindness? How Does Legal Blindness Compare? What Causes Legal Blindness? These options can all be used to help someone with legal blindness live more independently and enjoy more of the same activities as those with normal vision.

Adam Debrowski also contributed to this article. Low vision and vision rehabilitation. American Optometric Association. Accessed July Visual impairment, blindness cases in U. National Institutes of Health. May Common eye disorders and diseases. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here is one definition of low vision, related to visual acuity :. Visual acuity is a number that indicates the sharpness or clarity of vision. In the United States, the Snellen Eye Chart pictured at left is a test that ophthalmologists and optometrists use to measure a person's distance visual acuity. It contains rows of letters, numbers, or symbols printed in standardized graded sizes.

Your eye doctor will ask you to read or identify each line or row at a fixed distance usually 20 feet , although a foot testing distance is also used. Please note: An actual Snellen Eye Chart is much larger than the one depicted here; therefore, it's not recommended that you use this chart to test your own or a friend's or family member's visual acuity. Not all eye care professionals agree with an exclusively numerical or visual acuity description of low vision. Here's another — more functional — definition of low vision:.

It's not a functional low vision definition and doesn't tell us very much at all about what a person can and cannot see. A living room viewed through a constricted visual field. Source: Making Life More Livable.

Used with permission. For more information on the definitions of legal blindness, you can read Disability Evaluation Under Social Security , a publication from the Social Security Administration. Does it have something to do with defying the law? According to a report shared by the NIH ,. Why not have a look at the legally blind definition followed administratively all across the U.

Legal blindness has been described by the U. When your field of view is limited to the extent that the widest diameter of the visual field of your better seeing eye subtends an angle no more than 20 degrees. This system involves your identification of letters on an eye chart getting smaller and smaller, whereby the corresponding results are reflected as a fraction standardized for viewing something at a distance of 20 feet precisely.