Description

What does it mean to be legally blind, and what is the criteria used to define legal blindness? Dr. Muriel Schornack, OD at Mayo Clinic, answers.

Transcript

Robert: Hi! my name is Robert from Paterson New Jersey. I know you don't have to be completely blind to be legally blind. But how bad does someone say have to be for their label. Muriel Schornack: Robert that's a wonderful question. Legal blindness is defined as 2200 vision or worst in your better seeing eye, which means that basically you could no vision in one eye, 2200 vision in the other eye and just barely meet that categorization. The other criteria that sometime used to define legal blindness is the amount of side vision you have. People with normal visual acuity with 20 degrees or less of side vision may be also classified as legally blind.