WHEN IS VISION ASKED TOO MUCH

The last two decades a shift took place from substitutional/compensato ry training to utilisation of residual vision regarding rehabilitation of the visually impaired. Some of the visually impaired are able to u se their visual perception nearly as complete as normal seeing people in spite of a severe visual disability. On the other hand, people with nearly normal functions can be severely visually handicapped. To illu strate this, two cases are presented. The first case is a man, aged 47 years, with a juvenile macular degeneration on both eyes. In spite of a very low visual acuity of less then 0.05, he finished an university education and he is able to maintain himself very well in a leading p osition in a scientific environment, by using adequate low vision devi ces. Also for his leisure activities, as photography and speed skating , he relies upon visual perception. The second case is a woman, aged 3 0 years, with nearly normal visual functions, who is not able to read for longer periods caused by conflicting information from the body- an d eye movements, and the visual input. This causes sickness during rea ding. She is unable to use books for her study and is working with rec ordings on tape. The results of a comprehensive visual assessment will be related to the specific low vision devices and its use.