Contact lens optics are crucial for patient’s success and scleral lenses are not
an exception. Scleral lenses provide an optimal and stable platform for housing
standard and custom optics. Scleral lens optics are similar to corneal rigid gas
permeable lens optics; however, there are additional variables of the post-lens tear film,
decentration and tilt that are associated with scleral lenses. Unique fitting
characteristics of scleral lenses may complicate empirical determination of lens power
at this time. Practitioners may still need to use a diagnostic scleral lens and overrefract.
Nevertheless, current scleral lenses can provide optical correction that rivals
spectacles or other modes of contact lens correction. Furthermore, incorporation of
higher order aberration correction on a rotationally and translationally stable scleral
lens platform may eventually allow patients to achieve better visual acuity than other
modes of correction. Looking ahead, the use of a scleral lens as a platform for
magnification aids patients with low vision.
Keywords: Aberration, Bitangential, Centration, Correction, Decenter, Higher
order, HOA, Optical system, Optics, Power, Prism, Prismatic, Refractive,
Rotational, Spectacle, Stabilization, Tear lens, Telescope, Translational, Visual
acuity.
