If your elderly family member has never had issues with her vision in the past, she might not think that eye exams are all that important now. But the reality is that eye exams are extremely important for aging adults, especially if your senior’s goal involves aging in place. In honor of National Eye Exam Month, it might be a good idea to schedule an eye exam for your senior.
Eye Exams Help Your Senior to Be Safer
Regular eye exams help to spot changes to your senior’s vision that could leave her feeling unsafe. As your senior’s vision changes, that can cause her to be unable to avoid obstacles simply because she doesn’t see them. If there are ways that she can correct her vision, it’s important for her to know about them so that she can continue to see as well as possible.
They Also Help to Prevent Eye Disease
Getting to the eye doctor on a regular basis also helps your elderly family member to be more likely to prevent serious complications from eye diseases. Eye health concerns like glaucoma, cataracts, and macular degeneration are much easier to treat when your senior knows about them early on. Her eye doctor can help her to put together a comprehensive plan.
Your Senior May Uncover Other Health Facts
But there’s more to eye health than just eye issues. Plenty of health concerns, like high blood pressure and diabetes, make themselves known in other ways beyond symptoms that might be easy to overlook. Some of the symptoms are much more visible to your senior’s eye doctor, which might mean that eye exams help her overall health.
Making Eye Exams Easier for Your Senior
There are lots of reasons your senior might be avoiding eye exams, but some of those reasons have solutions available. Transportation can be a huge concern, and home care providers can be a tremendous help with that issue. If your elderly family member has anxiety about doctor’s appointments, having someone there with her might be helpful with that as well.
Home care providers may be able to help your senior in other ways, too, especially if she finds that her vision affects her ability to perform the necessary tasks related to life and to aging in place. It can be difficult for your senior to accept help at times, though, so how you enlist that help might matter.
