G Cormack¹, B Grant¹, A Suttie², M MacDonald¹
¹Queen Margaret Hospital, Department of Ophthalmology, Dunfermline, United Kingdom; ²Fife Society for the Blind, Director, Kirkcaldy, United Kingdom
Ageing of the population may be associated with changing trends in blindness. Health services responsible for the management of eye disease do not always work closely with local social work departments responsible for services for the blind and partially sighted. Cooperation enables anticipation of trends in blindness. The information can be used by health services to monitor outcomes in the management of sight threatening diseases and by departments of social work to plan future services for the blind. We aimed to find the incidence of blind and partial sight registrations in Fife in the 1990's and classify them by gender, age and diagnosis. We tried to predict changes in registrations for the decade commencing 2000 using population projections. This information was sought to predict the caseload by age and diagnosis for social service planning. The following graphs only show the results for females due to a limit on images in this abstract. We will present the male data also.
Graph illustrates increase in macular degeneration in the '00s. Click for the large image.
Graph shows higher age profile in the '00s. Click for the large image.
Graph projects increased numbers of higher age profile registered in the '00s. Click for the large image.
Population of Fife in 2000 was 348403.
Total blind registrations 1990-9 were 937.
Projected blind registrations 2000-9 are 1015.
Total partial sight registrations 1990-9 were 1064.
Projected partial sight registrations 2000-9 are 1146.
Implications on the social services for the next decade include 1 Higher age profile which will require improved links with medicine for the elderly and a greater emphasis on overcoming social isolation 2 More macular degeneration which implies more residual field of vision. We must therefore consider environmental changes and teach mobility skills for low vision in an older, frailer persons. 3 Increased numbers registered whilst we are unlikely to see dramatic increase in resources, therefore we plan to improve resource utilisation and improve our use of volunteer and peer support
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