R A Schuchard¹, D C Fletcher²
¹Veterans Affairs, Rehab R&D Center, Decatur, GA, United States; ²University of Alabama Birmingham, Ophthalmology, Birmingham, AL, United States
Background. This study determined the relative importance of visual function, scotoma characteristics, and eye movement ability on everyday function and quality of life.
Methods. 335 people were evaluated with the scanning laser ophthalmoscope, ETDRS, Peli-Robson, MNRead Acuity, binocular perception, and NEI-VFQ.
Results. The people were 11 to 94 years old and acuity was from 20/20 to 20/3600 (binocular). Two, one, no functioning foveas was found in 27%, 30%, 43% of the people, respectively. 77% reported gradual vision loss occurred while only 19% reported a sudden drastic change in vision. 58% reported that their vision was changing or had changed recently. The following NEI-VFQ items were reported as significant problems in 75% or more people: 1) reading ordinary print; 2) street signs; 3) recognizing people across the room; 4) playing games (e.g., board or card games); 5) personal finances; 6) work or hobby activities; 7) watching movies or sports; and 8) being frustrated with dealing with the vision loss. The visual function measures studied effected difficulties in only a small number of the NEI-VFQ items (separate polytomous logistic regression; p<0.05). The use of the fovea versus an eccentric PRL and the retinal area of the PRL used for fixation showed effect on the greatest number of NEI VFQ items; 10 and 9 respectively. Binocular perception (versus monocular perception) and visual acutiy showed an effect on 8 and 6 NEI-VFQ items respectively.
Conclusions. Measures of visual function are not adequate by themselves to predict the lifestyle impact of vision loss on the life an individual with visual impairments. Direct questioning of everyday function and quality of life by an instrument like the NEI VFQ may have a valuable place in the routine vision rehabiltitation intake evaluation as well as in low vision research for determination of the effect of vision rehabilitation (clinical or research) on individuals with visual impairment.
Return to the ISLRR.ORG Home Page
