A Nationwide Population-Based Survey on Visual Acuity, Near Vision, and Self-Reported Visual Function in the Adult Population in Finland

Laitinen, Arja; Koskinen, Seppo; Härkänen, Tommi; Reunanen, Antti; Laatikainen, Leila; Aromaa, Arpo

doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2005.09.010

Cited by 75 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…But other research shows that a wide range of spatial frequencies may be used for reading, by young and older adults (e.g., Legge, Pelli, Rubin, & Schleske, 1985;Paterson, McGowan, & Jordan, 2012a, 2012b. Consequently, precisely how reductions in acuity and contrast-sensitivity observed for older readers in the present research, and prevalent for older adults in the general population (e.g., Derefelt et al, 2005;Laitinen, Koskinen, Härkänen, Reunanen, Laatikainen, & Aromaa, 2005), affect reading performance remains to be fully determined.…”

Section: 2009)mentioning

confidence: 81%

Aging and the control of binocular fixations during reading.

Paterson¹,

McGowan

Jordan

2013

Psychology and Aging

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Older adults (65+ years) often have greater difficulty in reading than young adults (18-30 years). However, the extent to which this difficulty is attributable to impaired eye-movement control is uncertain. To address this issue, the alignment and location of the two eyes' fixations during reading were monitored for young and older adults. Older adults showed typical patterns of reading difficulty but the results revealed no age differences in the alignment or location of the two eyes' fixations. Thus, the difficulty older adults experience in reading is not related to oculomotor control, which appears to be preserved into older age.Key Words: Aging; Eye Movements; Reading Aging and Coordination of Binocular Fixations 3 When reading, the eyes move along each line of text in a sequence of saccadic movements separated by brief fixational pauses during which visual information is acquired from the page. Throughout each saccade, the two eyes move in the same direction and with roughly the same speed, although small differences in velocity can cause brief periods of disconjugacy (e.g., Collewijn, Erkelens, & Steinman, 1988a, 1988bFioravanti, Inchingolo, Pensiero, & Spanio, 1995), during which the rotation of the eyes, and therefore the direction of each eye's gaze, differs. It nevertheless has long been assumed that after each saccade, the resulting fixations of each eye are closely aligned so that efficient reading can take place.However, recent research shows that the locations fixated by the two eyes often differ substantially during each fixational pause (e.g., Kliegl, Nuthmann, & Engbert, 2006;Paterson, Jordan, & Kurtev, 2009; see also Kirkby, Webster, Blythe, & Liversedge, 2008). In particular, the two eyes typically fail to fixate the same character within a word on about 50% of fixational pauses, and misaligned fixations can be as much as two or more characters apart and may even be on different words.Moreover, misaligned fixations can be either crossed (when the right eye fixates to the left of the left eye's fixation), or uncrossed (when the right eye fixates to the right of the left eye's fixation), and the nature and extent of disparity may vary across fixational pauses.Fixation disparity is likely to be an important component of reading difficulty (e.g., Blythe, Liversedge, Joseph, White, Findlay, & Rayner, 2006;Kirkby, Blythe, Drieghe, & Liversedge, 2011) and appears to change as children mature into young adulthood (e.g., Fioravanti et al., 1995;Yang & Kapoula, 2003). For instance, the fixations of beginning readers (under 10 years of age) and child readers with developmental dyslexia are more likely to be misaligned, and to have greater disparity, than those of young (non-dyslexic) adult readers (e.g., Blythe et al., 2006;Kirkby et al., 2011). But major changes in the visual system continue into later adulthood through normal aging (e.g., Kerber, Ishiyama, & Baloh, 2005; Aging and Coordination of Binocular Fixations 4 for a review, see Owsley, 2011), and these changes appear to include a ...

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Section: 2009)mentioning

confidence: 81%

Aging and the control of binocular fixations during reading.

Paterson¹,

McGowan

Jordan

2013

Psychology and Aging

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“…This could be because women of this age group have performed more indoor work, and hence were less exposed to blue light-hazard, or to the fact that men traditionally have had more industrial or outdoor careers that may lead to higher frequencies of incipient cataracts, early undiagnosed macular degeneration, and so on 35. Although Laitinen et al36 found no differences in sex in VAs for distance vision, they did report that a decrease in near vision was more common for men than for women. The mechanism underlying this difference in sex has yet to be elucidated, and further research is required.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory impairments in community health care: a descriptive study of hearing and vision among elderly Norwegians living at home

Haanes¹,

Kirkevold²,

Horgen³

et al. 2014

JMDH

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BackgroundHearing and vision impairments increase with age and are common risk factors for functional decline reduced social participation and withdrawal.ObjectiveDescribe the hearing and vision of home care patients older than 80 years.MethodsNinety-three older adults (80+ years) receiving home care were screened for hearing and vision in their homes. Data were collected using a HEINE Mini 3000® Otoscope to examine the eardrum and presence of earwax, an Entomed SA201-IV portable pure-tone audiometer to measure the pure-tone average (PTAV), a logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution chart to measure visual acuity (VA), and the Combined Serious Sensory Impairment interview guide.ResultsSlight and moderate hearing impairments were found in 41% and 47% of the population, respectively (mean PTAV =40.4 dB for the better ear), and 40% and 56% had impaired and slightly impaired vision, respectively (mean VA =0.45 for the better eye). The participants’ self-assessments of hearing and vision were only weakly correlated with PTAV and VA values. The visual function was significantly worse in men than in women (P=0.033). Difficulty in performing instrumental activities of daily living because of hearing and vision impairments was experienced by 17% of the participants, whereas 76% experienced no difficulties. When many people were present, 72% of the participants found it difficult to understand speech. Nearly 30% found it tiring to read, and 41% could not read very small print.ConclusionThe patients’ self-assessments of their hearing and vision did not correlate strongly with their VA and PTAV scores. Asking the elderly about their overall hearing and vision ability is not sufficient for detecting sensory impairment, and asking more specific questions about what they could not hear and see was not an adequate indicator of the patients’ hearing and vision problems. To detect hearing and vision impairments among elderly home care patients, standardized measurements of their hearing and vision are necessary.

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“…Developing countries, such as China, represent an area with average availability of eye care services. Developed countries, such as the US, Finland and Singapore, represent a situation with widely available eye care services [22,25,26]. …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Prevalence of Visual Impairment in Older Adults in Mainland China: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Cheng

Cheng²,

Cai³

et al. 2012

Ophthalmic Res

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Purpose: This paper presents estimates of the prevalence of blindness and low vision among older adults over 50 years of age in mainland China. Methods: All primary reports of population-based studies that reported the prevalence or incidence of visual impairment among older populations in mainland China were identified. Twenty-four population-based studies were included in this systematic review. Blindness is defined as visual acuity of less than 3/60, or a corresponding visual-field loss to less than 10 degrees in the better eye with the best possible correction; low vision is defined as visual acuity of less than 6/18, but equal to or better than 3/60 in the better eye with the best possible correction. The pooled prevalence estimates of blindness and low vision were calculated assuming a random-effects model. Relative odds with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated, stratified by methodological and socioeconomic variables. Results: The overall pooled prevalence of blindness was 1.7% (95% CI 1.4–2.1). The results of the meta-regression showed the significance of a predictor variable: geographic region. The blindness rates per 100 older adults in various regions were 1.4 (0.9–2.0) in East China, and 1.4 (1.0–2.0) in Central China and 2.5 (1.9–3.2) in Western China. The overall pooled prevalence of low vision was 4.1% (3.4–5.1) and the independent pooled prevalence rates stratified by geographic region were 3.6% (2.6–5.1) in East China, 3.6% (2.4–5.2) in Central China and 5.2% (3.6–7.4) in Western China. Conclusions: Blindness or low vision affects approximately 5.8% Chinese adults older than 50 years. The prevalence of visual impairment, and especially blindness, vary greatly by the developmental status of geographic region.

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A Nationwide Population-Based Survey on Visual Acuity, Near Vision, and Self-Reported Visual Function in the Adult Population in Finland

Cited by 75 publications

References 26 publications

Aging and the control of binocular fixations during reading.

Aging and the control of binocular fixations during reading.

Sensory impairments in community health care: a descriptive study of hearing and vision among elderly Norwegians living at home

The Prevalence of Visual Impairment in Older Adults in Mainland China: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

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