Retinoscopy

Retinoscopy (Ret) is a technique to obtain an objective measurement of the refractive error of a patient's eyes. The examiner uses a retinoscope to shine light into the patient's eye and observes the reflection (reflex) off the patient's retina. While moving the streak or spot of light across the pupil the examiner observes the relative movement of the reflex or manually places lenses over the eye (using a trial frame and trial lenses) to "neutralize" the reflex.