“But other than that, I am in perfect health!” I heard these words from my 95-year-old grandmother when I called her recently. She is, in fact, in remarkably good health for her age, but her diagnosis of macular degeneration about 20 years ago and her acute hearing loss have dramatically changed how she now lives her life. She lived independently into her 80s, but when she began to experience more issues with her vision, our family knew we would need to make some adjustments and plan for her care in the future.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, low vision and blindness are the leading causes of disability in the United States. Nearly 500,000 people were diagnosed with low vision this year, and a recent JAMA Ophthalmology study reports that low vision and blindness are expected to double in the next 30 years, with 2.3 million people expected to be blind and more than 9.5 million living with low vision.
