The High Cost of Low Vision

The content of this blog has been reposted with permission from Laurie Blanchard at InfoLTC blog, at http://infoltc.blogspot.com/. Ms. Blanchard is the librarian at the Misericordia Health Centre Library, University of Manitoba Health Sciences Libraries in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Prior to working at the Misericordia Health Centre, Laurie worked at the J.W. Crane Memorial Library, Deer Lodge Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba for 20 years.  She authors the InfoLTC blog for which she won a Manitoba Library Association's Innovation Award and the People’s Choice Award for Best Poster at the CHLA/ABSC 2009 Conference in Winnipeg. Ms. Blanchard is a former editor of the Bibliotheca Medica Canadiana (now the Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA) , and currently serves on the board of the CHLA. Ms. Blanchard's views are solely her own and do not necessarily represent the views of Clinical Geriatrics or of HMP Communications, LLC.

The report, The High Cost of Low Vision, comes from the International Federation of Aging (IFA). According to the IFA, "Vision loss − 80 percent of which is preventable − is currently the leading cause of age-related disability." Vision loss can have drastic personal, social and economic consequences to those affected and often increases the risk of depression. The purpose of this report is to discuss the importance of saving vision in older adults, and to demonstrate the economic repercussions of ignoring the problem. The High Cost of Low Vision also includes recommended priority actions for policy makers.

To download the PDF, please click here: http://www.ifa-fiv.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-High-Cost-of-Low-Vision-The-Evidence-on-Ageing-and-the-Loss-of-Sight.pdf