Deep Wink
Purpose: To show how to resolve detail by using background and objects, making use of peripheral vision
Apparatus: Letter chart or calendar
Method:
1. The patient is to be seated comfortably about 20 feet from a calendar, or letters as small as he can make himself see.
2. The patient is instructed, “Close your eyes and hands tightly. Now open your eyes and hands widely and inhale deeply through your nose, avoiding the intense desire to wink. Hold your eyes, lids and hands tense, or in an alert condition and exhale through your mouth. Continue to hold your eyes wise open and the lids alert, but relax your hands and arms and breath normally. Avoid winking, and call off the smallest letters your eyes let you see. Direct your attention toward the letters on the chart, but as if the white background lies some distance behind the letter. Do not look hard at the letters.”
3. The patient is told to start at the top of the chart, reading each letter aloud with a definite tempo. When he comes to a line or a letter that has not yet come through, he must call each blurred letter “blank.”
4. When the difficult line is completed, review the other lines without being conscious of size differences.
Aspects to be Emphasized:
1. The patient must be reminded that he must not try to make himself see. He must let himself see in response to light stimulation.
