Low Vision/Geriatrics News

Research advances in the area of wavefront aberrometry have yielded new understanding of visual optics, the branch of optics concentrated on the role of the eye and brain on how we perceive images. This could result in a number of benefits, including better lens prescriptions and a way to detect accommodation errors.

Although there are many factors that can cause a fall, poor vision is foremost among them. Patients with significant visual impairment need special attention from their eye care providers to help preserve their physical health.

Patients with age-related macular degeneration found prescribed optical low vision devices to be useful, and they used the devices consistently over a 3-month period, according to a study published in Optometry and Vision Science.

On Sept. 24, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius issued a joint letter on behalf of their respective agencies to the chief executive officers of five hospital trade associations about the adoption of electronic health record systems.

Aging is a universal phenomenon involving significant sensory, motor and cognitive changes in response to our advancing years. However, we do not all age at the same rate. Some individuals experience relative rapid declines in physiological and psychological functioning as they grow older, while others undergo significantly less pronounced changes over time.

The article, “Today’s primary care OD can provide low vision care more easily” (March 2012, page 16), by Scott A. Edmonds, OD, FAAO, brings up a number of concerns and comments that I shall address, calling on my 38 years of experience in providing low vision care.

Attitudes of professionals and of the general public toward the elderly are very similar. In 1969, Dr. Robert Butler coined the term “ageism” to describe the phenomenon of discrimination against elderly people in American society.

Low vision care has undergone a dramatic change over the past 10 years. These changes have opened the door for more of this care to move out of the specialty low vision clinic and back into the scope of the primary care optometrist.

Results from two studies presented at Academy 2010 in San Francisco showed the benefits of reading additions in pre-presbyopes with low vision and the high prevalence of binocular vision anomalies among the elderly.

SAN FRANCISCO - A retrospective study of 500 patient files showed that binocular vision anomalies had a prevalence of at least 42% in patients 60 and older.