Low Vision
Low vision means that even with regular glasses, contact lenses, medicine, or surgery, people find everyday tasks difficult to do. Reading the mail, shopping, cooking, seeing the TV, and writing can seem challenging.
Millions of Americans lose some of their vision every year. Irreversible vision loss is most common among people over age 65. Losing vision is not just part of getting older. Some normal changes occur as we get older. However, these changes usually don't lead to low vision.
Causes and Risk Factors
Most people develop low vision because of eye diseases and health conditions like macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, and diabetes. Your eye care professional can tell the difference between normal changes in the aging eye and those caused by eye diseases.
A few people develop vision problems after eye injuries or from birth defects. Although vision that is lost usually cannot be restored, many people can make the most of the vision they have.
Signs of Low Vision
There are many signs that can signal vision loss. For example, even with your regular glasses, do you have difficulty
- Recognizing faces of friends and relatives?
- Doing things that require you to see well up close, such as reading, cooking, sewing, fixing things around the house, or picking out and matching the color of your clothes?
- Doing things at work or home because lights seem dimmer than they used to?
- Reading street and bus signs or the names of stores?
Regular dilated eye exams should be part of your routine health care. However, if you think your vision has recently changed, you should see your eye care professional as soon as possible.
Rehabilitation
If your eye care professional says, "Nothing more can be done for your vision," ask about vision rehabilitation. Find out where you can get more information about services and devices that can help you. A specialist in low vision is an optometrist or ophthalmologist who is trained to evaluate vision. This person can prescribe visual devices and teach people how to use them.
Rehabilitation programs, devices, and technology can help you adapt to vision loss. They may help you keep doing many of the things you did before.
These programs also offer a wide range of services, such as low vision evaluations and special training to use visual and adaptive devices. They also offer guidance for making changes in your home as well as group support from others with low vision.
There are specific visual devices and training on how to use them. Many people require more than one visual device. They may need magnifying lenses for close-up viewing and telescopic lenses for seeing in the distance. Some people may need to learn how to get around their neighborhoods.
Information Obtained From National Institute Of Health