Amsler Grid
Interactive central visual-field screening grid.
For educational purposes only. A teaching and screening aid, not a medical device; it does not replace a standard clinical examination.
How to use
- Test one eye at a time, with the other eye covered, in good, even room light.
- The patient wears their usual near correction (reading glasses or the reading segment of bifocals).
- Hold the screen at the distance shown under the grid — that is the distance at which each square spans 1°, so the grid covers the central 20° (10° either side of fixation).
- Ask the patient to keep looking at the central dot throughout. While fixating, ask: Can you see all four corners and all four sides? Are any lines wavy, bent or distorted? Are any areas missing, dark, or blurred?
- Mark what they describe with the matching tool — Distorted, Missing or Blurred — then switch to the other eye. Each eye keeps its own drawing.
How it is scored
- The grid is not scored. The summary counts the 1° squares that carry each kind of mark, and lists the field quadrants involved.
- Quadrants are named from the patient’s point of view: the top of the grid is the superior field, and the right half is the temporal field for the right eye and the nasal field for the left eye.
- A mark within the four central squares is flagged as involving fixation (the central 2°).
Limitations
- The Amsler grid is a screening aid with limited sensitivity: patients often fill in a defect without noticing it, and small or shallow scotomas are frequently missed. A normal grid does not exclude macular disease.
- On a screen, the angular size depends on holding the right distance. The distance shown is worked out from an estimate of this screen’s pixel size, so treat it as approximate.
- Drawings stay in this browser tab only. Nothing is saved or sent.
References
- Amsler M. Earliest symptoms of diseases of the macula. Br J Ophthalmol 1953;37:521-537.
- Crossland M, Rubin G. The Amsler chart: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Br J Ophthalmol 2007;91:391-393.
- Faes L, Bodmer NS, Bachmann LM, Thiel MA, Schmid MK. Diagnostic accuracy of the Amsler grid and the preferential hyperacuity perimetry in the screening of patients with age-related macular degeneration: systematic review and meta-analysis. Eye 2014;28:788-796.
For educational purposes only. The Clinical Exam tools are part of an educational platform. They are screening and teaching aids, not certified medical devices: a result depends on the screen (letter sizes are estimated for the type of device), the lighting and the testing distance. They are not a diagnosis, and any abnormal or doubtful result should be confirmed with a standard clinical test.