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Thread: How does everyone measure reading level for slabs?

  1. #1
    OptiBoard Professional William Walker's Avatar
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    How does everyone measure reading level for slabs?

    Hello again,

    When it comes to slab patients, my old optical proffesor reccomended setting a mirror with a dot on it flat on the dispensing table, and with the frame on, having them focus on the dot. Then with a marker, I'd put a dot at where I saw their eye while I also looked at them through the mirror. This seemed like a tricky measurement.
    When it comes to reading level, does everyone just look at the layout chart for a progressive, and measure the difference between distance and near OCs? And for FTs, measure down to the reading segment's OC?

    Thanks for the help so far. I want to make sure I do these right, as slabs and vertex compensation are just a few of the things that if my office can/would do right on every patient that requires it, it would put us in the top 1% of opticals in our area.
    William Walker

    Associates in Science in Opticianry
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    Next Goal: ABOM

    Optician with Lenscrafters in Jacksonville, FL

  2. #2
    What's up? drk's Avatar
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    Hey, you have a good eye for precision. Very respectable.

    For vertex, don't worry about it. I think a responsible OD will put that extra
    -0.12 in the -9.00 Rx. Hyperopes don't get high enough to worry about, unless they're aphakes.

    For slab off, it is safe to assume everyone looks down about the same amount. Progressive companies have been getting away with this concept for years. Do an experiment yourself. You'll find you look down about 10 mm, which is mighty nice for the math!

    (An interesting point knowing this is that when you do a "normal" seg height for a seg [and I know most are taught to use lid anatomy for this], you generally put it 6-10 mm below straight ahead gaze, meaning that there will be a little head lift to see with the segmented MF, but not much. With a progressive, the corridor lengths alone are something like 14 mm or longer. Another good reason not to use progressives with NEW anisometropes.)

    A clinical way to customize this is to use a maddox rod with a penlight, have the person look down to read using their normal posture, and take the imbalance measurement. That's the official way to do it, IMO, but I think you can get away with the simple 10mm measurement.

    This is one reason why we are going to see Ipseo machines in our offices, right?

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