Course Outline
1. Sight Loss
Overview
Welcome to lesson 1 of 8 in the GuideConnect Sales Executives Course. This lesson introduces you to sight impairment and the symptoms people may experience.
Lesson Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to name common eye conditions that can result in vision loss.
This lesson should take no more than 5 minutes to complete.
Vision impairment
It is important to take a moment to consider vision loss and its effects on people.
Vision impairment, also called sight loss, sight impairment, vision loss, and partial or visual impairment, refers to the loss of sight that cannot be corrected using glasses or contact lenses. Vision impairment can affect people of all ages, with most people being over the age of fifty.
Young children with a vision impairment can experience lower levels of educational achievement, and in adults it often affects quality of life through lower productivity, decreased workforce participation and high rates of depression.
There are several types of vision loss, and these can be caused by different diseases or conditions. Symptoms can range from mild symptoms through to blindness and symptoms can develop and change over time. Symptoms can include loss of central vision, loss of peripheral vision, night blindness, inability to recognise colours, sensitivity to bright lights, blurry vision, and ability to see shapes without detail.
Causes of vision loss include:
- Age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is an eye disease that can impact a person’s central vision. AMD is a leading cause of vision loss for people aged fifty and older. This can occur very gradually or quite rapidly. For many people, they begin to see a blurry area near the centre of their vision, which may increase in size over time.
- Glaucoma. Glaucoma is a group of diseases that damage the optic nerve, which is in the back of a person’s eye. Symptoms can happen so gradually that a person may not know they have it until they have an eye examination. It can occur in one or both eyes. Without treatment, glaucoma can eventually cause blindness, beginning with the peripheral vision.
- Diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is a condition causing vision loss and blindness in people with diabetes. It affects blood vessels in the retina, which is the light-sensitive layer of tissue in the back of the eye. It is important that a person with diabetes have regular eye examinations. Left untreated, diabetic retinopathy can develop into total and permanent blindness.
- Retinitis pigmentosa (RP). RP is a group of rare eye diseases that affect the retina (the light-sensitive layer of tissue in the back of the eye). RP makes cells in the retina break down slowly over time, causing vision loss. Symptoms usually start in childhood, and most people eventually lose most of their sight.
- Other causes of vision loss include poor eye health and trauma that results in injury to the eye.
As described above, vision loss can cover a range of symptoms. To address this, Dolphin offers software programs with a rich set of features to help people maintain their independence when using computers.