Vision Health Needs to Be Promoted in Aging Population

Global Coalition on Aging CEO Michael Hodin issued a call to action to tackle vision health challenges among the aging population at the recent Prevent Blindness Focus on Eye Health National Summit in Washington, reports Healio . "The latest data across all OECD countries, which includes the United States, is that 73 percent of those who are surveyed between ages of roughly late 50s and early to mid 60s, around what had become traditional retirement in the last century, wanted to keep working," he said. "With vision impairment that becomes harder, but let's make sure that all of us are producers in society rather than costs." He went on to urge a focus on earlier detection, better prevention strategies, and better treatment. Prevent Blindness' Kira Baldonado added that infrastructure needs to be diversified, and age-friendly cities must be developed, to meet vision health requirements. "We have to make vision health part of our vernacular in our society," she stressed. "When there's a diagnosis of a vision impairment that cannot be helped, we need to make sure that the rest of the system is engaged and we connect people to the care, to the resources, the adaptive devices that are going to help them maintain a higher quality of life."