What is the difference between blindness and partial sight?
Blindness is a substantial and permanent lack of sight. A person can be registered blind if he or she can only just read the top letter of the optician’s eye chart at a distance of three metres or less. This level of visual acuity is known as 3/60 vision. Partial sight is a less severe loss of vision. A person can register as partially sighted if he or she can only see the top letter of the eye test chart at a distance of six metres or less.This level of visual acuity is known as 6/60 vision. In both cases, people may be registered with a better level of vision if their fields of view are affected. Many people do not realise that only a few blind people (25 per cent) see nothing at all. A minority of people can distinguish light but nothing else, some people have no central vision, others have no side vision and some see everything as a vague blur or a patchwork of blanks and defined areas.
