Normal Contrast Sensitivity for Various Ages

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To estimate the mean contrast sensitivity of normal Korean people and determine the difference between various ages. METHODS: One hundred sixty eight eyes with normal vision and no ocular disease were divided into three groups: the first group was ages between 10 and 19 years (n=32), the second group between 20 and 59 years (n=110), and the third group older than 60 years (n=26). We tested the contrast sensitivity with multivision contrast tester 8000 (Vistech Consultants, Inc., USA) which uses sine wave grating patches of 5 different spatial frequencies under standardized luminance at two different conditions of day and night RESULTS: Mean contrast sensitivities of total eyes at spatial frequencies of 1.5, 3, 6, and 18 cycles per degree were 40, 84, 92, 56, and 20 at day condition and 37, 70, 56, 21, and 5 at night condition, respectively. Mean contrast sensitivity of the first group was higher than that of others at all 5 spatial frequencies and there was no statistical significance between the second group and the third group (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Mean contrast sensitivity of normal eyes included in this study was within the normal value of other previous study. There was statistically significant decrease of contrast sensitivity value in older age group.