Guest Speaker - Naomi Meltzer
Dealing With Low Vision
Naomi, formerly of Barry and Beale Optometrists, specialises in helping people with low vision to manage their visual problems.
Low Vision is a visual impairment, not corrected by spectacles, contact lenses, medicine or surgery that interferes with the ability to perform everyday tasks.
The main causes of low vision include:
Macular Degeneration
Glaucoma
Diabetes
Cataract
Accident (incl. stroke)
Neurological - eg. Parkinson's, Alzheimer's
Macular Degeneration and Glaucoma are the major causes of low vision.
Macular Degeneration affects the centre part of vision which makes it difficult to read and recognise people. You don't go blind from Macular Degeneration, you retain your peripheral vision.
Glaucoma is a disease of the optic nerve and affects peripheral vision.
Some of the aids for people with low vision include:
Hand held self-illuminated magnifiers,
Orcam - a wearable text to speech reading device. It can be taught to recognise faces and can also tell you the time when you are not wearing a watch.
Large Print keyboards
Self-illuminated stand magnifiers.
Everyone's needs are different but Naomi has many tools to help people to function better in their environment.
Jim Holmes thanked Naomi for her fascinating presentation and for showing us devices that we haven't seen before.