Retinoscopy

[Oculomotor]

For the practicing OD's out there, how often do you guys/gals use retinoscopy in your practices versus an autorefractor and on which patients?

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[362.04]

On kids, only a retinoscope and lens bar. Sometimes 10-12 times a day on adults because the technician forgot or didn't have the chance to do the auto refractor. It works out to 50% time retinoscope and lens bar and 50% of the time AR. By the way, I love the "spot" scope over the "streak".

 

[r_salis]

I work at a small office with no techs or autorefractor -- I use my ret on most patients. One nice thing about ret is that you can see how clear the pt's media is, it gives you an idea of how crisp a 20/20 (or worse) you can expect to get.

 

[Hambre]

Yeah, I scope about 25% of the time. Auto is good, but like ret, its just a rough tool. If you are good at ret, you can trust yourself over the Auto.
I personally found our Auto is not accurate past -4D, so if the patient is high, I ret anyway.

If you are looking for a way out of learning this skill... sorry! It is tough for some people to get, but its imperative you know it!
My problem learning it was I did not have my working distance down. I thought I was right at 1.5D away (66cm) when I was actually closer. I now use 1.75D as my WD and it works perfectly. Dead on.

Morale of the story: practice!
Good luck!

 

[eyepoker]

ret....very hard....I'll have to practice more before the assessment ~~