Description

What is legal blindness, and how is it classified? Dr. Muriel Schornack, ophthalmologist at Mayo Clinic, answers in this video.

Transcript

Robert: Hi! My name is Robert from Paterson, New Jersey. I know that you don't have to be completely blind to be legally blind, but how bad does someone's sight have to be for that label? Dr. Muriel Schornack: Robert, that's a wonderful question. Legal blindness is defined as 20/200 vision or worse in your better seeing eye, which means that basically you could have no vision in one eye, 20/200 in the other eye, and just barely meet that categorization. The other criteria that sometimes 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 also be classified as legally blind.