Optics: eye examining – vision testing and correcting – Eye examining or testing instrument – Objective type
Reexamination Certificate
2000-12-26
2002-03-19
Manuel, George (Department: 3737)
Optics: eye examining, vision testing and correcting
Eye examining or testing instrument
Objective type
Reexamination Certificate
active
06357877
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ophthalmic apparatus for performing observation or treatment by illuminating an eye of a patient.
2. Description of Related Art
As an ophthalmic apparatus for observing a patient's eye, there is known a slit lamp for projecting slit-shaped illumination light on the patient's eye, thereby allowing observation through an observation optical system, or a laser treatment apparatus constructed by a combination of the slit lamp and a laser irradiation device.
These ophthalmic apparatus each cause an illumination light source provided inside of the apparatus to project illumination light on the patient's eye to thereby performing observation and treatment. A tungsten lamp, a halogen lamp or the like is generally used for the illumination light source.
However, an illumination light source using a lamp is short in service life. Thus, such illumination light source requires frequent replacement, which is cumbersome and imposes burden on operators or the like. In addition, the lamp has a large heat rate during illumination, and may have a thermal effect on its periphery. It is therefore required to pay attention to a material or an installation position, etc. of the periphery of the illumination light source during design.
The slip lamp is provided with a mechanism to insert/remove a wavelength selection filter for enabling fluorescent observation or the like into/from an illumination optical path. This may increase complexity in configuration of the apparatus.
In many cases, a laser treatment apparatus for performing photocoagulation or the like is provided with a protective filter disposed in an observation optical path in order to protect an operator's eye from a laser beam for treatment reflected from the patient's eye or the like. However, in the case of observation through a protective filter for cutting a visible treatment laser beam, an observation image looks more colorful than that in the case where no protective filter is provided, has strangeness, and makes it difficult to ensure observation.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made in view of the above mentioned technical problems. It is an object of the present invention to provide an ophthalmic apparatus provided with an illumination light source which is easy-to-handle and arranged in simplified configuration.
Another object of the present invention is providing an ophthalmic apparatus capable of facilitating observation even in the presence of a protective filter during laser treatment.
In order to solve the foregoing problems, the present invention is characterized by comprising the following constituent elements.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an ophthalmic apparatus including: an illumination optical system for illuminating an eye of a patient, the illumination optical system including a plurality of LEDs which are illumination light sources for emitting beams of light of wavelengths in different regions and a composing optical system for composing optical paths of the beams of light emitted from the LEDs; an observation optical system for observing the patient's eye; and a light quantity control section capable of controlling an illumination light quantity of each of the LEDs to produce substantially white illumination light.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an ophthalmic apparatus including: an illumination optical system for illuminating an eye of a patient, the illumination optical system including a plurality of LEDs which are illumination light sources for emitting beams of substantially white light and a composing optical system for composing optical paths of the beams of light emitted from the LEDS; an observation optical system for observing the patient's eye; and a light quantity control section for controlling the light emission quantity of each of the LEDs.
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Manuel George
Nidek Co. Ltd.
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
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