Eyesight Deterioration Information for Caregivers

As a caregiver, it is important to be aware of your resident’s vision and any deterioration to it that would affect their eye health and general quality of life. Due to the nature of your work in a care home with older adults, you will notice that your resident’s eyesight will naturally deteriorate with age, and they are susceptible to eye conditions. 

This is important to note when you have a resident with Alzheimer’s, dementia or other condition, which makes it harder for them to bring their vision issues to your attention, as they may rely on you to notice the difference in their vision. This may be noticeable because your resident stops doing activities that they loved to do prior. 

It could be a near-vision issue, and therefore they stop reading, looking at photos, doing jigsaws or sewing, for example. Otherwise, the issue may be to do with their distance vision as they stop watching TV, or they tend not to walk around as much as they are worried about tripping/falling.

Helping your residents with their eyesight

Here are some simple steps from the eye care professionals at Opticall that you can follow to help the residents in your care home so they can maintain a good level of vision and take care of their eyes:

Healthy Lifestyle

Everyone should try to maintain a healthy lifestyle for their physical and mental health, especially as they become older. To maintain a healthy quality of life, it is important to eat a balanced, healthy diet full of important vitamins, minerals and nutrients. Ask your health care team to check out our blog on Food for Good Eyesight for more tips.

It is also important to avoid excessive alcohol consumption, and smoking as these can increase the risk of suffering from eye conditions such as age-related macular degeneration.

Physical activity for your residents is also important so they have healthy lives, which in turn supports them to keep their eyes healthy as well as the rest of their bodies.

Protecting your eyes from the sun

One important part of eye care services that you should provide to your residents is to help them protect their sight from the harmful UV rays of the sun. Ensuring that your residents wear sunglasses can help to reduce the risk of them developing more serious health conditions in their eyes, such as cataracts, macular degeneration and conjunctival cancers. We go into detail about how you can avoid your residents getting their sight impaired in the sun in this blog: https://opticalleyecare.co.uk/protecting-your-eyes-from-the-sun/.

Regular Eye Exams

It is important for your residents to have regular, thorough eye examinations with an eye care professional so that any changes in their vision can be identified and helped quickly. Opticall advises you to organise regular eye tests for your residents as it enables us to detect and diagnose any medical conditions such as glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration.

In your care services role, it is important that you let a vision optician, such as ourselves at Opticall, know if any sudden changes in a resident’s sight and not just leave it until their next scheduled annual check-up. Conditions such as double vision, changes to peripheral vision and/or sudden sight loss need to seek medical attention; in some cases, it’s a medical emergency.

Why Choose Opticall Services

At Opticall, we want to help your health care team with your residents keep their acuity/sharpness of vision for as long as possible; that is why we offer:

• A comprehensive service to our patients, from our thorough eye examinations and eye health checks through to the residents having their glasses personally hand delivered and fitted. 
• We engage with your resident’s next of kin so they can understand first-hand the results
  of the eye test and if there are concerns to their standard vision.
• We provide free aftercare services, so if there are any issues with your resident’s glasses, we’ll resolve them, so there is no disruption to their field of vision for longer than necessary.
• If we feel that your resident’s visual field can be improved, then we can suggest low vision aids to help them.
• Our opticians are highly trained and experienced, caring for patients with a varying range of health conditions and additional needs, so we are able to offer our vision services to all your residents.