The development of Wavefront technology has significantly improved the safety and quality of vision delivered by today’s advanced laser vision correction. The iDesign® Wavefront from Johnson and Johnson Vision® is the industry leader, by a significant margin. This laser technology provides customized and effective treatment for nearsightedness (opens in new tab), farsightedness, astigmatism, and higher-order aberrations by taking the eye’s natural, but often slightly irregular, shape into account.
Patients who have problems focusing on either distant or near tasks typically use glasses and contacts to enjoy clear vision in everyday life, but these solutions do not provide a truly customized treatment that matches the unique shape of their eyes and corrects their distinctive vision issues. To measure all the visual irregularities in the human visual system, you’ll need something more advanced than the now archaic technique of “is one or two better?” that you often experience at a typical eye exam. The only method to comprehensively measure complex vision abnormalities is Wavefront technology.
If you’re interested in laser vision correction in Portland, call today for a consultation to learn more about recommended options for your unique vision needs.
How iDesign Wavefront Technology Works
If we held a photograph in front of a perfect eye, all the light coming off that photograph and entering the pupil would come to an exact point on the back of the eye, at the retina. Delivering such a perfect result through laser vision correction is complicated because not only do virtually all eyes exhibit a slight football shape (called astigmatism), but they also have some degree of anomalies that cannot be corrected with either glasses or contact lenses. In such cases, the light focused on the back of the eye would be smeared or smudged rather than forming a single point. If we examined the distortion of light from an eye that needs contacts and glasses in 3-D, the warped image of light in front of the eye would be distorted in the shape of a potato chip, with each chip-shape unique to that individual eye. This chip shape would be as unique to that eye as a fingerprint is to a person.
The Wavefront (opens in new tab) technology used to measure your eye (called an aberrometer) captures the 3-D profile (or map) of this chip-shape. Surgeons examine these shapes to group them into categories based on similar characteristics. For example, some shapes might look like a sombrero while others might look like a taco. The laser profile is then defined based on the actual shape of this 3-D map. This data guides the Vision Star S4 IR (opens in new tab) laser, which functions much like a printer to deliver this highly unique optical solution to reshape your cornea. Once this highly customized laser treatment pattern is completed, the new corneal shape should bring light into proper focus and with much greater accuracy and fidelity than is possible with glasses or contacts.
The new clear focus will produce the best vision quality and have the fewest side effects, such as halos or glows around lights.
Understanding the Benefits of Wavefront-Guided Laser Vision Correction
Custom, Wavefront-guided LASIK is revolutionizing our ability to perform laser cornea reshaping by making the process more accurate than ever before. Think of it like current digital technology: you’re familiar with the high-quality images provided by HD televisions compared to standard ones. The program content is the same, but the image clarity is worlds apart. That’s the type of difference that we can observe with Wavefront-guided LASIK compared to conventional LASIK surgery.
Complex abnormalities in vision, which are unique to you, can be precisely measured using a Wavefront device that creates your optical fingerprint. The data generated by Wavefront can be transmitted digitally to the laser to deliver an extremely complex and accurate treatment, effectively correcting all optical irregularities in the visual system. This high-resolution, 3-D, custom treatment allows us to provide you with your best personal vision and often exceeds that of glasses, contacts, and older LASIK surgery.
Wavefront guidance provides the following:
- A higher quality of personal vision for both day and nighttime
- Consistently superior night vision
- Enhanced vision quality outcomes similar to the difference between a high-definition television image to that of standard definition
- Measurably reduces the chance of needing a laser enhancement compared to standard LASIK
At Will Vision and Laser Centers (opens in new tab), we offer only the best, safest, and most accurate advanced technology to achieve optimal visual outcomes.
Correction of Complex Vision Irregularities
Before the development of Wavefront technology, laser vision correction could only treat simple focusing errors, such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. However, with the development of CustomVue® and the more recent iDesign® Wavefront diagnostic systems, this is no longer true. When these technologies are combined with advanced lasers, we can treat complex irregularities and deliver vision solutions that are superior to those produced by glasses or contact lenses.
Even when present only to a small degree, complex anomalies can cause blurred vision, halos, or glare around lights at night. Wavefront technology, however, can measure all the vision irregularities created by even the most “optically deformed” eyeball and provide a detailed map that can be used to create a customized laser treatment pattern. This pattern can correct all vision irregularities caused by the eye’s deformed optics and deliver a degree of optical clarity superior to that of other laser vision solutions.
Wavefront vs. Glasses and Contact Lenses
Virtually all eyes demonstrate some degree of vision problems due to complex irregularities. Imagine an eye that is football-shaped but has some of the air let out. Due to the lack of symmetry and the extent of the deformation, you can imagine how difficult it would be to create a pair of glasses or contact lenses that would completely correct this abnormality.
Glasses and contact lenses correct poor vision by assuming that the eye is either perfectly round, like a basketball, or oval-shaped, like a football. In practice, eyes never follow these assumptions. As a result, glasses and contact lenses only estimate the actual lens needed to restore perfect vision. Even though a person may see 20/20 with glasses, most have unwanted visual noise in the form of night glare and blur caused by these imperfect vision treatments.
Choose the iDesign® for Laser Vision Correction in Portland, OR
Applying a new profile to the cornea is challenging and requires advanced technology. Constant eye movement and rotation, as well as changes in pupil position, make treatment highly complex. Compensation for the eye and pupil movements is performed using a complex iris recognition system, so that the treatment is dynamically aligned with the moving human eye. Highly accurate eye tracking with iDesign® Wavefront precisely follows even small eye movements to ensure that each laser pulse lands on the correct location on the cornea.
With all these factors accounted for, treatment based upon Wavefront technology provides superior vision correction compared to that achieved by glasses, contact lenses, and non-Wavefront laser treatments.
To learn more about the advanced diagnostic and vision correction technology available at Will Vision and Laser Center, contact our office (opens in new tab) today for a consultation.