Abstract

In clinical practice today, the means of relating the severity of cataract to visual function are subjective, requiring patients to respond to test stimuli. The principal objective of our work, however, is to develop an optical method for the objective quantification of image degradation due to cataract that does not require patient response.¹ We have constructed a prototype optical instrument that projects and focuses a fine illuminated line on the retina, re-images the resulting retinal line image (the double-pass line spread function or LSF) onto a CCD camera, and quantifies the LSF by measuring its width (specifically the full width at half height or FWHH). In a study of sixty-three patients, we have compared measurements obtained with the LSF instrument to subjective vision test measurements.

© 1995 Optical Society of America