Why Healthy Vision Is More Than Just 20/20

Having 20/20 vision may help you see more clearly, but it doesn’t guarantee your overall visual health. Here, we dive into other vision issues that fall outside the 20/20 rule.

About 35% of people in the United States have 20/20 eyesight. While many of them may brag about having “perfect vision,” that’s not exactly true. If those numbers told the whole story, the fields of neuro-optometry or ophthalmology wouldn’t exist.

People seek out our team of neuro-optometry experts at DeyeNAMICS when something else — unrelated to seeing 20/20 — affects their vision. Let’s examine what 20/20 vision really means, and why it doesn’t cover everything.

What 20/20 means

In simple terms, 20/20 vision measures visual acuity. The first 20 refers to the distance from the object (20 feet) and the second number refers to the distance it takes for a person with normal visual acuity to see something compared to you.

For example, if you have 20/40 vision, it means that you see something from 20 feet that someone with normal vision can see at 40. So, your vision is worse. Conversely, someone with 20/10 can see something at 20 feet that people with typical vision can see at 10 feet — so, 20/10 vision is better than average.

While this measurement is a great gauge for eyesight, it doesn’t capture the full picture of your visual health.

Vision issues outside visual acuity

A person with 20/20 vision can still have low vision due to other issues that lie outside visual acuity and refractive errors.

Like your other senses, your vision interacts closely with your brain, so if you have a neurological issue, your vision can be affected. Neurological issues that can impact your ability to see include:

Mechanical issues can also lead to low vision, including:

Amblyopia, or lazy eye, the leading cause of vision impairment in kids
Strabismus, or cross-eyes
Color vision
Poor peripheral vision
Poor depth perception
Poor balance

As you can see, there’s a lot more to vision than just good visual acuity at 20 feet.

Neuro-optometry can help

At our practice, we deal with many of those issues that lead to visual impairment or low vision that have nothing to do with your visual acuity.

We understand the larger picture and offer an extensive toolkit that can help improve your vision, whether it’s a muscular problem in the eye movements or an issue in the brain.

From specialized lenses and exercises to neuro-visual postural therapy, we aim to help people navigate their worlds safely and clearly.

To learn more about the work we do in neuro-optometry or to sit down with one of our specialists to see how we can improve your vision, please contact us at one of our offices in Sacramento, Bellflower, or Valencia, California; Guildford, Connecticut; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; or Plano, Texas, to set up an appointment.