Using the real-life vision test to assess the functional vision of age-related cataract patients

Abstract

Purpose (1) To describe and validate a newly developed, timed performance-based measures of functional vision-the real-life vision test (RLVT). (2) To determine how RLVT relates to clinical measures and selfreport assessment of visual function and the complex interactions among visual impairment, psychosocial status, and demographic factors. Methods A total of 64 patients with age-related cataract and 45 age-matched controls were evaluated by four types of measurements: (1) demographic, medical, cognitive, and depressive evaluation and the reaction time (RT) testing; (2) clinical measures (visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, stereopsis, and the color perception); (3) the 25-item National Eye Institute's Visual Functioning Questionnaire; and (4) the RLVT. Spearman's coefficients, partial correlation, and multiple regression analysis were conducted to determine the relationship among RLVT, clinical measures, and selfreport assessment of visual function while controlling for confounders. Results Control subjects performed RLVT significantly better than the cataract patients. RLVT correlated well with both clinical and self-report assessments of visual function. All subscales of RLVT remained highly associated with most of the clinical measures, even after adjusting for age, years of education, depression, cognitive status, and the RT. Distance, intermediate and near visual acuity, and binocular contrast sensitivity were significant predictors of the RLVT performances. Conclusions Given the strong relationship among RLVT, clinical measures, and the self-report assessments, our results highlight the potential usefulness of RLVT for assessing the functional vision of cataract patients. RLVT may provide information not obtainable from clinical measures or surveys and therefore it is essential to be incorporated into future ophthalmological practice.

Impact of cataract surgery on vision-related life performances: the usefulness of Real-Life Vision Test for cataract surgery outcomes evaluation

“…In this test, Task 2 from the previous study 23 Reading and Chinese character picking in reduced illumination has been deleted from RLVT due to the less prevalence of reading in the darkness in real-life situations for elder people.…”

“…Pioneering studies has demonstrated that PBMs can be reliable and valid methods in assessing real-life visual ability. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] Owing to its significance in visual hierarchy, PBMs of visual function is becoming an important part of researches on the real-life effects of visual diseases.…”

“…It also showed that RLVT might provide information not obtainable from standard clinical measures or subjective surveys. 23 This study aims to (1) enhance our understanding of the role of RLVT on assessing the actual visual ability to perform real-life tasks in patients following cataract surgery; (2) to determine how RLVT relates to both clinical measures and self-report assessment of visual function postoperatively and how they can be used together to evaluate patients' overall visual ability in everyday life. Age-related cataract patients (56) and 44 age-matched control subjects were enrolled in this study.…”

“…More recently there is a coming up of trend in developing a method for evaluation of functional vision-performance-based measures (PBMs) of visual function. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] It involves presenting patients with commonly encountered tasks of daily life in a standardized format and getting a grade in accordance with their visual ability to complete the tasks. Pioneering studies has demonstrated that PBMs can be reliable and valid methods in assessing real-life visual ability.…”

“…13,23 Given the important role of functional vision of cataract patients, a new type of vision-specific PBM was developed based on Chinese population in our previous study-Real-Life Vision Test (RLVT). 23 Our previous study has validated the potential efficacy of RLVT for assessing functional vision of cataract patients. It also showed that RLVT might provide information not obtainable from standard clinical measures or subjective surveys.…”