This course is intended for beginning and intermediate levels. This course covers basic to intermediate level information regarding astigmatism and is presented online through Eye-Courses.com.

After completing this section, the student should be able to do the following:

  • Define corneal astigmatism
  • Define lenticular astigmatism
  • Differentiate between regular and irregular astigmatism
  • Identify with the rule astigmatism refractive errors
  • Identify against the rule astigmatism refractive errors
  • Define simple myopic astigmatism
  • Define simple hyperopic astigmatism
  • Define compound myopic astigmatism
  • Define compound hyperopic astigmatism
  • Define mixed astigmatism
  • List symptoms of astigmatism
  • Identify causes of astigmatism
  • Describe how the following instruments aide in detecting astigmatism: keratoscope, keratometer, corneal topographer, retinoscopy, Refractometry
  • Identify with the rule astigmatism on corneal topography imaging
  • Identify against the rule astigmatism on corneal topography imaging
  • Describe what a Placido disk is and how it is used to detect and measure astigmatism
  • List treatments for corneal astigmatism
  • List treatments for lenticular astigmatism
  • Identify possible complications of untreated astigmatism

This course should take approximately 1 hour to complete

This course has been approved by the AOA Commission on Paraoptometric Certification (CPC) for continuing education credit for use toward paraoptometric certification renewal.