Video Transcript:
Hi, I'm Charlie Saccarelli from Chadwick Optical. And today we're going to talk about monocular telescopes and how they work for patients with low vision and reduced visual acuity. So you may recognize these. They are…well, binoculars. They’re pretty cool because they let you see things bigger far away. So if there's an animal or a bird over there and I can see that it is a bird, I can see the details of the bird if I simply look at it through the binoculars.
Now, the challenge—and these are a very compact pair of binoculars—is that chances are, in life you don't necessarily want to carry this around with you everywhere. That's where a monocular telescope can come in handy. The way that they're used in low vision and vision conditions like macular degeneration, where you have reduced visual acuity and challenges seeing distance, is for spotting.
You're not going to use them like you would in bird watching. But if there's something that you need to get a little bit more clarity about what it is—say you're in an airport or a store and you're trying to read a sign and you can't quite make it out—looking at the sign through the telescope, you can read the sign and then go to it.
Monocular telescopes come in a lot of different powers and each power magnifies things differently. One thing that is very important to remember in low vision is that more is not always better. You want to magnify things as little as possible because there is a significant trade-off in magnification: when you are magnifying things, you're erasing everything around it and really limiting your field.
This is a 3X monocular telescope. When you look through it, the things that you see are going to be three times bigger. This one is a 6X telescope. When you look through it, things are going to be six times bigger. Now you can see the size difference. And also, when you see things six times bigger, it's also going to give you a smaller field of view. So basically, you would be able to see twice as much field out of a 3X as you would out of a 6X. So take that even further. If you have, say, a 12X, the 12X field would be shrunk even more. So you want to pick a telescope that's the very minimum that is effective for you. Because if you go too much, you're going to encounter all of those issues.
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Disclaimer: The information provided in this video is for educational purposes only and is based on our experience in optical solutions. We are not medical doctors. Consult with your ophthalmologist, neurologist, or other qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your treatment plan. The solutions discussed are intended to support, not replace, professional medical advice.