Low vision is a visual impairment, not correctable by standard glasses, contact lenses, medicine, or surgery, that interferes with the ability to perform everyday activities.Most people develop low vision because of eye disease such as cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy or macular degeneration. Low Vision primarily affects people over the age of 65. Many people live with vision that limits their everyday activities, a condition known as low vision. Low vision may involve blurryness, poor central vision, loss of peripheral vision, or even double vision. Whatever the symptom, the immediate consequences are often the same — difficulty performing day-to-day activities such as reading a newspaper, using a computer, watching television, cooking a meal, or crossing the street. While there may not be a cure, there are low vision video magnifiers and other low vision aids to help.

Video magnifiers enable individuals with low vision or visual disabilities to engage with essential, everyday activities and improves their quality of life. These low vision devices magnify up to 100x with autofocus. With these low vision magnifiers, low vision individuals can read newspapers, medicine bottles and books; write checks, letters and correspond with friends; look at photographs and other items. Low Vision Video Magnifiers have radically changed low vision rehabilitation in the last ten years and continued improvements in technology make these low vision aids very effective tools.

The most common video magnifier for reading is called a Desktop Video Magnifier. These low vision products feature a camera mounted over a tray on which the material to be magnified is placed. Some have a built-in monitor and are known as "stand-alone" magnifiers. Others are designed to connect to a television or personal computer.

Most desktop video magnifiers have a "reading tray" that holds the material to be magnified. This tray can be moved from side to side or forwards and backwards, in order to position the desired part of the material directly under the camera. The reading tray is known as an "X/Y tray," in reference to the x-y coordinates that indicate the horizontal and vertical position of points on a graph.

Desktop video magnifiers usually take about as much desk space as a personal computer, and perhaps a little more because of the need for free space in which to move the reading tray. Because of their built-in monitors, most stand-alone desktop models are too heavy to be called portable. Some weigh over 30 pounds. Desktop models that connect to a separate computer or a television are lighter but generally require the same amount of desk space.

How to get more information - Ask your Eye MD for a Low vision Specialist. Low vision specialists are licensed doctors of optometry who are trained in the examination and management of patients with visual impairments. A few of them are ophthalmologists with additional training in low vision care. Their services do not offer a cure for the causes of low vision, but they do help the patient learn how to utilize their remaining vision to its fullest potential. Low vision care does not replace the possible need for other treatments such as laser, medication, and surgery.