The Prevalence of Visual Impairment in Retirement Home Residents

Elderly persons often have eye diseases causing either reversible or irreversible visual loss. The prevalence of such problems among retirement home residents is unknown.

203 residents of retirement homes in and around Würzburg, Germany, were examined. Clinical histories were taken, including information on prior ophthalmological care, and ophthalmological examinations were performed, including visual acuity, slit-lamp examination of the anterior segment of the eye, fundoscopy (with optical coherence tomography), and measurement of the intraocular pressure.

119 women and 84 men aged 55 to 101 were examined in 6 retirement homes. 44 (21.7% ) had ophthalmological findings that required acute treatment. The most common diagnoses in the anterior segment of the eye were keratoconjunctivitis sicca (160; 78.8% ), cataract (88; 43.3% ), secondary cataract (15; 7.4% ), glaucoma (33; 12.3% ), and eyelid malpositions (25; 12.3% ). In the fundus, 45 residents (22.2% ) had dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), 7 (3.4% ) had fresh wet AMD, and 7 (3.4% ) had epiretinal gliosis. 81 (39.9% ) could give no information about earlier ophthalmologic examinations, and 42 (20.7% ) had not been to an ophthalmologist for at least 5 years. After correction of refractive errors, their mean decimal visual acuity improved from 0.25 to 0.33.

The retirement home residents that we examined were not receiving adequate ophthalmological care; in particular, some of them had irreversible eye diseases that were not being treated. The ophthalmological care of retirement home residents needs to be improved through better collaboration of all types of personnel taking care of them.