Eye examination for archers: Mohammadi 2016 protocol

Rather than a study with results, this is the description of a protocol for examining archers' eyesight, developed at Farabi Eye Hospital in Tehran and piloted on compound and recurve archers from Tehran and Alborz provinces. From the sports vision literature the authors chose five examinations (static visual acuity, refraction, contrast sensitivity, eye alignment and stereoacuity, that is, depth perception with both eyes), plus eye and hand dominance. The full set of tests takes about 40 minutes per archer.

The pilot involved 57 archers aged 18 to 38 with more than six months of experience: 35 classed as "elite" (17 men and 18 women, mean age 28.25) and 22 as "non-elite" (10 men and 12 women, 28.64). The test results and the comparison between the two groups are not reported.

From the pilot the authors draw two observations. About 13% of the archers had an uncorrected refractive error. Combining dominant hand, dominant eye and aiming with one eye or both gives eight patterns, which they call "archery figures"; they also write that many archers in the elite group had patterns they consider problematic, without saying how many.

Each archer's level was a score from 0 to 5 based on titles and medals (club, regional, national, international), supplemented by the coach's judgement for newcomers; experience was calculated as training days per week multiplied by years of practice. Acuity was measured with an electronic letter chart at 480 lux, scored letter by letter from 0 to 100 (with 20/20 equal to 85), with one eye, with both eyes and with best correction. Refraction was measured with an aberrometer, with and without drops that block accommodation; contrast sensitivity with the CSV-1000 test in low light (12 lux in the table, 10.6 in the text); alignment with the cover test at 40 centimetres, 6 metres and a longer distance; and stereoacuity with the TNO test at 800 lux.

The dominant eye was identified with the Miles test, repeated three times: the archer looks at a distant object through an opening made with the hands, and the examiner checks which eye is lined up with it. The dominant hand was the one the archer reported. Tests needing the same lighting were done one after another in a fixed order, trying to approximate the light on an archery range.

The main limitation is that the work stops before the results: there are no test values, no comparison between elite and non-elite archers and no link with score. The split between elite and non-elite rests on medals and coaches' judgement rather than competition scores, and the two pilot groups are not described by bow type, distance or years of practice. The "archery figures" are a classification, not a finding: we do not know how many archers fall into each pattern, or whether any pattern goes with better scores.

Some of the test conditions are far from the range: contrast sensitivity was measured in dim light and stereoacuity with a test designed for near vision, and the authors themselves acknowledge that clinic lighting does not reproduce real conditions. Several statements in the discussion, such as the habit of choosing a right- or left-handed bow according to the dominant eye, report common opinion or other people's studies and do not come from these data.

For anyone who shoots, the useful part is the list of what may be worth checking about one's eyesight: acuity with both eyes and with the correction actually worn on the range, a small uncorrected refractive error, which in the pilot affected about 13% of the archers, and the relationship between the dominant eye and the drawing hand. At 70 metres, the authors note, even mild short sight or astigmatism can blur the target, which is why they propose testing refraction with drops, a method that also reveals hidden errors.

The study does not say what values are needed to shoot well, nor that cross dominance should be corrected: these are questions the protocol sets out to address, not answers. Any concern about eyesight should be assessed by an ophthalmologist or optometrist.