What is the legal definition of legally blind?
If you’re legally blind, your vision is 20/200 or less in your better eye or your field of vision is less than 20 degrees. That means if an object is 200 feet away, you have to stand 20 feet from it in order to see it clearly. But a person with normal vision can stand 200 feet away and see that object perfectly.
What is considered legally blind for Social Security?
You may qualify for Social Security benefits or SSI payments if you’re blind. We consider you to be blind if your vision can’t be corrected to better than 20/200 in your better eye or if your visual field is 20 degrees or less in your better eye for a period that lasted or is expected to last at least 12 months.
What is the legal limit for blindness?
If you have a visual acuity of 20/200 or worse (after putting corrective lenses on), you are considered legally blind. If the glasses or contacts improve your visual acuity, you are not legally blind. A visual acuity of -4.00 is roughly equivalent to 20/400 vision.
What is legally blind vs blind?
Legally blind means a person has a corrected vision of 20/200 in their best-seeing eye. If visual aids such as glasses can correct a person’s vision to 20/20, they are not considered legally blind. Totally blind refers to a complete loss of sight.
What is the legal definition of blindness and the educational definition of blindness?
What is the Legal Definition of Blindness? Legal blindness occurs when a person has central visual acuity (vision that allows a person to see straight ahead of them) of 20/200 or less in his or her better eye with correction. A visual field of 20 degrees or less is considered to be legally blind.
How do you describe blindness?
Blindness is frequently used today to describe a severe visual decline in one or both eyes with the maintenance of some residual vision. Vision impairment, or low vision, means that even with eyeglasses, contact lenses, medicine, or surgery, someone doesn’t see well. Vision impairment can range from mild to severe.
Legally, blindness is defined as less than 20/200 vision in the better eye with glasses (vision of 20/200 is the ability to see at 20 feet only what the normal eye can see at 200 feet). A person with 20° or less vision (pinhole vision) is also legally blind.
What is the treatment for a legally blind person?
Treatments Treatments for legal blindness vary depending on the cause and the stage of the disease. For age-related eye diseases, it typically involves prescription medications or eye procedures to try to delay or keep the vision from worsening. For example, the goal of treatment for glaucoma is to reduce eye pressure.
How is visual acuity related to legal blindness?
Part 1 of the U.S. definition of legal blindness states this about visual acuity: A visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better-seeing eye with best conventional correction (meaning with regular glasses or contact lenses). This is a 20/200 visual acuity measurement, correlated with the Snellen Eye Chart (pictured above):
How is Blindness defined in the United States?
In the U.S., the standard definition of legal blindness is based on central visual acuity (what’s in front of you) and field of vision (what’s above, below and to the sides).