One of the main concerns for glaucoma patients is maintaining their independence, such as the ability to drive or perform  activities outside of the house. Glaucoma affects people of all ages, and the condition worsens with time. We understand that patients want to maintain their lifestyle and offer various glaucoma treatments to lower intraocular eye pressure and slow down vision changes.

Glaucoma is a progressive disease that steals your peripheral and central vision gradually. There’s no way to regain vision once it’s lost to glaucoma, so treatment focuses on preserving your remaining eyesight. Patients often need to learn low-vision techniques and use assistive devices to maintain their independence before and after glaucoma surgery.

Magnification tools are one of the best ways to keep your visual freedom with glaucoma. These devices help you read, write, and continue working when central vision loss occurs. These tools may include magnifying eyeglasses for close-up tasks, stand magnifiers to enlarge printed materials, handheld magnifiers for portable use, and telescopes for distance vision. Some telescope versions attach to eyeglasses, while others are handheld and look like specialty binoculars. While these devices won’t fix the blind spots in your vision, but they can enhance your remaining eyesight capabilities.

You can modify your home and lifestyle to make the most of your remaining vision, such as:

  • Reduce any glares by adjusting lamps and lights in your home to avoid reflections on shiny surfaces. Use polarised sunglasses that wrap around your eyes and temples, and consider a ball cap, visor, or wide-brimmed hat to decrease glare outside.
  • Improve lighting throughout your home by replacing light bulbs with high-wattage bulbs and adding bright lamps in dim areas. Carry a high-power pocket flashlight and use a gooseneck lamp to brighten your workspace and focus your vision.
  • Increase contrast in your home by using a dark colours to offset light colours or the other way round. Use black contact paper to darken your desktop to see white documents more easily. Type in bold and write with heavy felt tip markers.

Depending on the severity of your glaucoma and vision loss, you may need additional devices to help you perform necessary tasks, such as watches and timers with voice control. Purchase remote controls, watches and thermostats that have large numbers and contrasting colours. In today’s modern world we have electronics to help you maintain your independence, such as audiobooks, smartphones and tablets, where you can use voice commands and increase the text size and contrast. Most computers can also magnify the screen and read text aloud.

If you are suffering from glaucoma, contact us to see how we can help.