Purpose: The design and use of new near-vision charts for training and evaluation of the use of optical aids in low vision patients. Methods: Construction of new charts obeying a linguistic complexity, starting with words, followed by expressions and sentences and ending with texts. The new material was used in thirty-two patients with retinitis pigmentosa, with a corrected visual acuity from 0.5 to 1.3 LogMAR. Reading speeds were recorded with and without optical aids. Results: Word-reading, expression-reading, sentence-reading and text-reading charts in different sizes, with black print on a white background and white print on a black background. The data regarding age, sex, visual acuity, optical aids, print size, reading speeds with and without aids and educational training are shown. Conclusion: Text reading is the best instrument in qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the use of optical aids. The proposed charts have an increasing linguistic complexity trying to minimize the nonvisual factors. This is an important material for low vision, but reading performance depends on features of each patient.
Low vision; Reading; Sensory aids; Vision tests
