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Nursing home residents benefit from improved vision care

Newswise — New research from UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) shows that providing vision care to persons in nursing homes leads to better quality of life and a decrease in depression. In findings published this week in the Archives of Ophthalmology, the authors state that the study demonstrates that persons in nursing homes can personally benefit from access to the most basic of eye care services.

The UAB team, led by Cynthia Owsley, Ph.D., professor of ophthalmology, surveyed 142 people living in Birmingham-area nursing homes with uncorrected refractive error. Seventy eight received corrective eye glasses immediately and were surveyed again after two months.

They were compared to a control group of 64 residents who received their corrective eye glasses after the follow-up survey. Following two months of corrected vision, the immediate correction group reported dramatic improvement in vision-related quality of life activities and less depression than the delayed correction group.

“Compared to those who did not receive new glasses immediately, the group who did reported less difficulty in reading and other activities of life, including writing, using the telephone, playing cards or watching TV,” Owsley said.

“They also reported engaging more in social interactions such as visiting with others and participating in group activities.”

Owsley says that nursing home residents in the United States have high rates of vision impairment, with estimates ranging up to 15 times higher than corresponding rates for community-dwelling adults.

“There may be a pervasive attitude among nursing home staff, family and health care providers that many persons in nursing homes would not benefit from vision correction due to cognitive impairment or physical frailty,” Owsley said.

“Our findings indicate that good vision is associated with a more positive nursing home experience. Such research could serve as a strong impetus to increase the availability of eye care services in nursing homes.”

The National Nursing Home Survey found that only half of nursing homes have contracts for vision and hearing services. Studies have estimated that more than half of nursing homes residents have no evidence of having received eye care, even when an eye care provider is available.

The study was funded by the Retirement Research Foundation, the EyeSight Foundation of Alabama, the Pearle Vision Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and Research to Prevent Blindness. Owsley is a Research to Prevent Blindness Senior Scientific Investigator and director of the Clinical Research Unit in the Department of Ophthalmology at UAB.