Prevalence of preventable blindness in a VA outpatient clinic

Seventy-nine of 4,005 veteran patients (1.97%) were found to have legal blindness during a retrospective record review of all eye patients examined during a 12-month period. This prevalence rate is almost 10 times the national average for all Americans. Most cases of legal blindness could have been prevented if the patient had presented to our clinic earlier in the natural course of his or her disease. The various causes of blindness are reported, and recommendations to prevent this needless loss of sight are discussed.