Legally Blind – What’s to Know About?

Now, let’s get back to what’s meant by going legally blind due to “reduced central visual acuity of 20/200 or lower”? In majority of the cases, a measurement system referred as the “Snellen Visual Acuity” is followed all through the USA in referring to the clarity of eyesight.

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.

Having a 20/200 visual acuity means the smallest letters that you’ll identify from the chart by standing 20 feet away from it will be equal to the size of the smallest letters a person with “normal vision” would be able to identify at a distance of 200 feet from the chart.

This means that your central vision, the part of your eyesight needed to see and identify objects when you’re looking directly at them, has been deteriorated significantly – 10 times in this case – compared to that of a person with normal vision.

For you to be considered legally blind, you must have a visual acuity of 20/200 or worse in your better seeing eye with corrective lenses on it. (Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2018)

So, your inability to see properly without glasses while you get up in the morning won’t have to do much with qualifying you as a legally blind person.

Similarly, if your vision can get better than 20/200 with the help of glasses or contacts, you won’t be considered legally blind, irrespective of how much nearsightedness (myopia), farsightedness (hyperopia) or squint  (astigmatism) you have.

Also, if your vision remains worse than 20/200 despite best correction in one eye, but your other eye is able to see better than 20/200 with the help of a corrective lens, you will not be considered as legally blind.