The Gerontologist, Vol 29, Issue 3 359-365, Copyright © 1989 by The Gerontological Society of America
The implications for everyday life of incident self-reported visual decline among people over age 65 living in the community
LG Branch, A Horowitz and C Carr
We examined the consequences of incident self-reported vision loss among a
cohort of community-living people aged 66 years and older. Those with
visual decline were older than those reporting constant excellent or good
vision, but not different in any other demographic characteristic, the use
of formal support services, the use of health services, or ADL (activities
of daily living) functioning. Controlling for age and sex, vision loss was
associated with unmet instrumental ADL needs such as housekeeping, grocery
shopping, and food preparation, and with physical and emotional
disabilities. We discuss the implications of these disabilities in terms of
the challenges to the aging and blindness service delivery systems.
