VISUAL-ACUITY AND CONTRAST SENSITIVITY IN THE ELDERLY

The visual acuity of the better eye in the elderly inhabitants of thre e communities (476 persons, aged 70 years or more) ranged from 0 to 1. 4 (mean 0.7), and 12% saw less than 0.3. The logarithm of binocular co ntrast sensitivity ranged from 1.0 to 2.75 (n = 412, mean 2.19) in the Cambridge test and from 0.15 to 1.95 (n = 468, mean 1.48) in the Pell i-Robson test. The 72 subjects with healthy eyes had a mean visual acu ity of 1.03 (range 0.5-1.4) in the better eye, and the two contrast se nsitivity tests gave mean values of 2.45 and 1.69, respectively. Corti cal, nuclear and mixed cataracts and macular pathology impaired both c ontrast sensitivity and visual acuity. The correlation between the thr ee tests was good in the whole sample acid in the different subgroups of cataract and macular changes, individually, however, a few contradi ctory results were obtained. According to these results measurement of contrast sensitivity does not add much to the general information obt ained in the elderly by visual acuity measurement alone, but in select ed cases it may give valuable information.