What Might The Visually Impaired Seniors Experience?

Getting old is a natural process for all human beings. It’s irresistible and inevitable. Some people naturally accept aging, while others may be afraid of it. Getting old is a long-term process and it takes time. We will notice the body is no longer strong as before, and some age-related diseases appear gradually. Yet it’s not always negative to become elderly. With time going by, our knowledge, minds, and horizons widen as well. Among several impacts getting old brings, we particularly discuss the influences on seniors with low vision, and try to offer suitable activities and tips for them in this article.

Most people worry about getting old because of the potential of getting sick. The elderly usually are easier to be attacked by viruses since the cells in their bodies are also getting old, which makes the defense system weaker than before. This can be considered a part of intrinsic aging, as in the biological aging of cells. Moreover, the impacts from the external result in extrinsic aging as well. The lifestyle, the living environment, and even the climate would all cause different influences on seniors.

Aging eyes are also a certain process as long as we get old, and it’s normal to lose vision no matter what owing to natural regulations or consequences of specific diseases. The situation of vision loss can vary to different extents, from moderate to severe. For instance, presbyopia, a common eye condition for people over 40 years old, would make the vision blurred at a normal reading distance. Moreover, diseases like diabetes, cataracts, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration all mean the loss of vision and even legal blindness.

The first issue that visually impaired seniors often meets is the quality of their lives would decline. The slight blurry vision may lead to small inconveniences in their lives, especially when they want to read books or check detailed texts like labels. Then the situation becomes more and more severe as the vision function goes worse and worse: the loss of the field of vision, central vision loss, the smudges in the vision, and other forms of vision loss, will all bring difficulties in lives. Especially for seniors with 20/200 vision, they directly need to face the problem of living independently.

Some visually impaired seniors have negative emotions. Loneliness, powerlessness, trouble with housework, reduced social activities and so on, are what they may confront, which would lead to isolated social relationships eventually. Some researchers expressed that long-term immersion in negative emotions is not conducive to both physical and mental health. Thus, keeping a positive mood is particularly important to be prepared for the difficulties.

Being visually impaired for the old might be upsetting, but there are always solutions for them. Besides maintaining a good attitude to meet the inconveniences that vision loss brings for the old people, there are also some tips for low vision seniors to overcome the troubles of vision loss. Here we have 5 suggestions for the seniors with low vision, and hopefully they can be helpful to increase the quality of life:

• Eat healthily
• Get enough sleep
• Audiobooks and podcasts
• Have a pet
• Have visually impaired aids

Read more: 5 Tips for the Visually Impaired Seniors

In a word, getting old is not as horrible as you might imagine, although degraded body functions, maturity and experiences are also what we get during this process. Being active lets you face everything through optimistic eyes, and there are always more solutions than challenges. If you are still young, don’t forget to express more concern for the old family or friends around you. Your warm words and behaviors are meaningful to them.