Eye Health Light Sensitivity

People need sufficient light to see what is around them and to see colors. Light bounces off the objects people look at. These objects reflect different amounts of light which people see as different colors. Seeing can be compared to the process of taking pictures on a film with a camera which is taken then get developed. The retina of the eyes is like a camera film which stores an image of what people are looking at. The image of the object directed onto the retina is then sent along to the brain where it is processed, like developing a camera film. Therefore people actually ‘see' in their brain with the light information sent to it from their eyes. This whole process of seeing happens very quickly so that everything people see is in focus.

The eyes need light to see or to work properly. Light entering to the eye is collected by the cells of retina and processed by the brain to obtain the pictures that people need to see. Light is an important part of this process, for instance it is difficult to read when light levels are low. Sometimes light can cause problems for the perfect vision. There are times when the quality of light or the amount of that light can affect the ability to see. Most of the people with low vision need more amount of light than usual to read. Too much amount of light, however, can cause problems from glare. Glare is when a light source badly affects the ability to see clearly. There are broadly two types of glare, discomfort glare and disability glare. Disability glare reduces the visual performance. Disability glare can be caused by eye ailments and can occur with ordinary light sources and levels of light.

The anatomical structures of the eye are normally clear, which means the light passes directly through our eye. As people age certain eye problems can make the eye's structures less clear. The most common example of this condition is a cataract.

When people have a cataract, the lens in their eye is not as clear as it should be. This condition causes the light entering the eye to scatter. The light can not pass smoothly through the lens and scatters throughout the eye. This condition effect, as well as making things unclear and blurred, also makes coping with bright light difficult. The quantity of scattering of light depends on the amount of light entering to the eye and how thick the cataract is. This actually means that a brighter light will scatter more, causing things to become more blurred and causing more glares. People with cataracts in their eyes often have a lot of trouble with glare.

Some people born with a lack of necessary pigment in their eyes, ocular albinism, and this causes glare. Eye diseases such as macular degeneration, cataracts etc. can cause glare. Other eye types of problems such as conjunctivitis and corneal problems can also cause difficulties with glare. There are some disorders such as meningitis that cause light to be painful. If people start to experience light sensitivity then it is always best to have it checked out by an optometrist as it may be the first sign of an eye disease which may need treatment.

• Cassandra Bagley
• 08/01/2009, 4:59 AM
• 0 Comments