Influence of loupes and age on the near visual acuity of practicing dentists

We evaluated the near visual acuity of 40 dentists and its improvement by using different magnification devices. The acuity was tested with miniaturized E-optotype tests on a negatoscope under the following conditions: 1. natural visual acuity, 300 mm; 2. single lens loupe, 2×, 250 mm; 3. Galilean loupe, 2.5×, 380 mm; and 4. Keplerian loupe, 4.3×, 400 mm. In part 1, the influence of the magnification devices was investigated for all dentists. The Keplerian loupe obtained the highest visual acuity (4.64), followed by the Galilean loupe (2.43), the single lens loupe (1.42), and natural visual acuity (1.19). For part 2, the dentists were classified according to their age (<∕≥40 years). The younger dentists' group achieved a significantly higher visual acuity with all magnification devices (p<0.001). For part 3, the dentists were grouped according to their natural visual acuity. The group with the higher natural visual acuity achieved significantly higher visual acuity with all magnification devices than did the group of dentists with the lower natural visual acuity (p<0.01). It can be concluded that near visual acuity varies highly between individuals and decreases during the lifetime. Independent of age or natural vision, visual acuity can be significantly improved by using magnification devices.