How does retinal scanning benefit those with visual impairments?

Question

How does retinal scanning benefit those with visual impairments?

Answer 1

Not sure what you mean by scanning. Currently the only retinal scan is Ocular Coherent Tomography, but there are laser scanning ophthalmoscopes which act as a camera.

The OCT uses light as sound and reflects energy off of different retinal structures or layers and provides the analysis of those reflections as a picture of the retina. This can also be done with the cornea, the iris, the ciliary body and the optic nerve.

Retina specialists use the information to evaluate the state of the macular region, and other regions too. People with loss of vision from diabetes or hypertension or macular degeneration, or pigment detachments or serous retinopathies or any posterior inflammatory problem... all of these problems are shown by a cross sectional picture of the retina in the area being scanned.

In glaucoma, one sees the relative thickness and structure of the nerve fiber layer and ganglion cell layer. With retrograde damage to the ganglion cells, glaucoma leads to loss of the peripheral visual field. Using the OCT can help us 'see' the change that has occurred or not occurred over a period of time and tell us whether our treatment regimen is working or helpful or not. Maybe it just slows things down but helps.. maybe not.

In the ciliary body region or the angle, one can see the structures that are used in filtering aqueous. If there's a collapse of the trabecular meshwork and secondary loss of outflow or filtering, the pressure goes up causing optic nerve damage as seen in glaucoma. Glaucoma specialists use these scans to evaluate those structures.