Macular degeneration: Coping with reduced vision
How can counseling and training help me cope with reduced vision?
There are many resources available to help you meet the challenges of living with reduced vision and maintain your quality of life.
Seek counseling, rehabilitation, and training
Low-vision specialists and groups and agencies that offer counseling, training, and other special services related to vision loss are available. Low-vision rehabilitation specialists can provide you with detailed practical information and training on managing your household and other activities of daily life that can be more challenging when you have low vision. These specialists can also help you find ways to cope with low vision in the workplace. Specialists may include:
- Rehabilitation counselors and teachers who can address specific needs.
- Occupational therapists.
- Orientation and mobility specialists.
- Low-vision specialists.
- Experts in technology adapted for people with visual impairment.
- Professional counselors, who can offer guidance and support in dealing with the emotional and psychological effects of living with impaired vision.
Develop your personal support network
There are many resources available to help you overcome the challenges of living with low vision, to make the best use of the vision you do have, and to maintain your quality of life. Your family and friends as well as your health care and social services professionals can help you.
Finding out that you have AMD can be very difficult. You may feel fear and anxiety that loss of vision from AMD will make you less able to function on your own and that you may lose your independence. These feelings are perfectly normal. If you need help in dealing with them, talk to your doctor and to your family and friends.
Your doctor can also refer you to counseling, rehabilitation, and training specialists who can help you adjust to living with low vision. The more skills and resources you learn to use, the more you will be able to do. By learning to live with your low vision, you can continue to work, live independently, and preserve your mobility as much as possible.
Test Your Knowledge
Which of the following can help you cope with reduced vision and maintain your quality of life?
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| Author: | Jeannette Curtis | Last Updated: August 4, 2009 |
| Medical Review: |
Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine
Christopher J. Rudnisky, MD, FRCSC - Ophthalmology |
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