Nursing Home Residents Not Getting Regular Eye Care

Two-thirds of nursing home residents in a new UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) study had no record of or reference to an eye examination in their medical charts, although more than half were visually impaired. In findings published in the July issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, UAB researchers examined 380 residents of 17 Birmingham-area nursing homes.

Fifty-seven percent of the residents were visually impaired, with visual acuity worse than 20/40 in the better eye. Older adults living in the community typically have a visual impairment rate between 10 and 20 percent. Three-fourths of the participants had abnormal binocular contrast sensitivity, or the ability to detect boundaries between objects and changes in brightness, which is important for mobility and reading.

Connecting Tags; Medicaid, economics, LTC, institutions, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy