Regular eye exams are more than just an opportunity to update your prescription and discover the latest fashion in eyeglass frames. An annual exam is vital to the health of your eyes, ensuring you will enjoy sharp, clear and colorful vision for a lifetime.

Here, the experienced West Palm Beach and Jupiter vision care professionals of Mittleman Eye outline the key benefits of regular eye exams.

Screening and Diagnosis

The best thing you can do to maintain the health of your eyes is to catch any developing problem in its earliest stages. A regular exam by an experienced ophthalmologist will always include a check of intraocular eye pressure. Elevated eye pressure is a key warning sign for glaucoma and macular degeneration.

For each of these serious conditions, there are no obvious symptoms until very late in the progression of the disease, when it is often too late to prevent partial or total loss of vision. Glaucoma and macular degeneration can affect patients of any age, but are more prevalent among older populations.

Adjusting Prescriptions

Vision correction is also central to your exam. Your Mittleman Eye vision care professional will precisely measure the magnitude of any refractive changes in your vision, adjusting your prescription for nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism.

Depending on the type of correction needed and your own preferences and lifestyle, your ophthalmologist will recommend appropriate lenses to sharpen your vision. If you work long hours in front of a computer screen, lenses that reduce eye strain will be important. If your eyes are sensitive to many types of contacts, you may be interested to know that advancing technology has led to the availability of ultra-comfortable lenses that feature high water content.

Comprehensive Evaluation

Your eye exam will include a check of how well your eyes work together, as well as an evaluation of your field of vision, depth perception, color vision and your pupils’ response to light. Your ophthalmologist will also measure the curvature of your cornea and examine your retina, optic nerve and other internal structures of the eye. Changes within the eyes can be warning signs of diseases originating elsewhere in the body, including high blood pressure, diabetes and certain cancers.

Our comprehensive eye exams are tailored to the age of each patient. Children need early and precise measurement of vision to ensure they are seeing everything in the classroom and not falling behind academically. Middle-aged people often begin to experience presbyopia, the common condition that makes reading fine print more difficult. Older individuals often develop cataracts and may need lens implants to restore clarity of vision.

If you are overdue for a comprehensive eye evaluation, we invite you to schedule an exam with an experienced ophthalmologist at our West Palm Beach or Jupiter office by contacting Mittleman Eye today.