Eye doctors use Ophthalmoscopes as eye examining instruments to detect any health issues in eyes and diagnosis purposes. Suppliers offer various types of Ophthalmoscopes with different lens capacities. Ophthalmoscope has a light source on it with additional lens features that magnify the image of the inner structures of a patient’s eye.
What is Ophthalmoscope?
An ophthalmoscope is a specialized device that let the doctor examine a patient’s retina. Direct ophthalmoscope envisions the center of patient’s retina; indirect ophthalmoscope checks patient’s entire retina. The health care practitioner conducts this examination by opening a light beam passing via the pupil utilizing the subject instrument known as an ophthalmoscope. An ophthalmoscope is nearly around the dimensions of a flash-light. It has a source of light and various tiny lenses that enables the examiner to envision the rear view of the eye-ball.
Who invented Ophthalmoscope
There are various groups in the health care industry who gives the credit for ophthalmoscope invention to Charles Babbage in 1847. However few sources also say the otherwise and claim that it didn’t exist as such till 1851 when Hermann von Helmholtz reinvented it. After the reinvention of Ophthalmoscope, it was truly recognized at a wider scale.
The dissection of word Ophthalmoscope
Types of Ophthalmoscope
Ophthalmoscope comes in two different types: direct and indirect ophthalmoscopes.
Direct ophthalmoscopes are the ones that produce virtual, an upright, or unreversed image, an image which is up to fifteen times magnified. The direct ophthalmoscope is a medical examination tool around the dimension of a relatively small torch with numerous lenses that can magnify up to around fifteen times. This type is most generally utilized throughout a normal physical examination.
Also, read about Otoscope; Medical Device for Ear Examination
Whereas Indirect ophthalmoscopes are the ones that produce the real, inverted, or reversed image of up to five times magnification starting from doubled images. An indirect ophthalmoscope, on the contrary with direct, makes a light attached to a headband, apart from a small handheld lens. It offers an extensive view of the inner side of the eye. Additionally, it enables an improved vision of the fundus of the eye, even if the eyes are occupied by cataracts. An indirect ophthalmoscope is available in the market either in the type of monocular or the type of binocular. Doctors employ indirect ophthalmoscopes for viewing of the peripheries of a retina.
| Product Features | Direct ophthalmoscopes | Indirect ophthalmoscopes |
| Condensing lens | Not needed in this type | Needed in this type |
| Area of the field in focus | Around two disc diameters | Around eight-disc diameters |
| Examination distance | Mounted as near as possible to the eye | Kept as an arm’s length to the eye |
| Image | Erect and virtual | Inverted and real |
| Illumination | Not as luminous | Illuminous and useful for hazy media |
| Accessible fundus vision | Slightly beyond equator | Up to peripheral retina |
| Assessment in hazy media | Since it is virtual therefore not possible | Since it is real therefore possible |
Procedure performed by Ophthalmoscope
Ophthalmoscopy is an examining procedure that encompasses the assessment of the back and inside region of the eye. Health care practitioners also call Ophthalmoscopy as fundoscopy. It is a general procedure utilized to envision the interior and inner structures of the eyeball. These structures include the retina, macula, vitreous, retinal blood vessels, and optic disc.
How does an ophthalmoscope work?
In some cases, the eye doctor will utilize an indirect ophthalmoscope to have an extensive view of the patient’s eye’s inner structure, particularly the retina. With the help of indirect ophthalmoscopes, patient’s eye doctor mounts a visor on his head similar to that of a jeweler. The headband or that visor emits a bright light. By placing various lenses manually with hands in front of the patient’s eye, an eye doctor can better examine, and increase magnification, within the inner structure of the patient’s eye.
The eye doctor will subdue the lights of the room or make it dim and ask the patient to focus at an immovable spot on a distant wall. Utilizing direct or indirect ophthalmoscopes, patient’s eye doctor will assess the inner elements of the patient’s eye. At times, medicated drops are utilized to “dilate” patients’ pupils or simply one can say to open up the pupils. These medicated drops help eye doctor in the eye assessment and examination. The eye doctor is trying to confirm indications of the goodness of the retina, and also looking for signs of any number of possible eye health issues, for example, macular degeneration and/or cataracts.
