What Seeing People Should Know About Blind People Wearing Sunglasses

Healthline

15th March 2021

What Seeing People Should Know About Blind People Wearing Sunglasses

If you’ve ever seen a blind person wearing sunglasses, you may have wondered why they were wearing them despite not being able to see.

It’s a common misconception that most blind people have no vision. In fact, only 15 percentTrusted Source of people with eye disorders have total blindness. The other 85 percent can see at least a limited amount.

There are a handful of reasons why a blind person may choose to wear sunglasses. Despite the stereotype, it’s usually not to hide their eyes but to protect their eyes from bright lights and glares.

Here, we take a deeper look at some of the reasons a blind person might choose to wear sunglasses and examine how sunglasses may help somebody with limited vision to see better.

Sunglasses can improve vision for blind people

The vast majority of legally blind people have some degree of vision. Sunglasses can help some people with limited vision maximize what they can see.

In the United States, legal blindness is defined as a central vision acuity under 20/200 in your better-seeing eye with corrective lenses.

Having 20/200 vision means you need to be 20 feet away from an object to see it as clearly as a person without visual impairment at 200 feet.

Legal blindness can also be defined as a visual field less than 20 degrees in your better-seeing eye without moving your eyes side to side. To get an idea what this would look like, you can poke a hole into a piece of paper with the tip of a pen and look through.

https://www.healthline.com/health/eye-health/why-do-blind-people-wear-sunglasses