Long lasting blindness, availability of resources, and early aging

The present paper studied the influence of long lasting blindness on processes of aging. It addressed the broader issue of the effects of familiarity with and earlier experience of stress on the capacity of individuals to deal successfully with similar stressful situations at a later point of development. 75 chronically blind men and women, aged 45 to 65, were compared with 75 sighted individuals (matched by age, sex, and cultural origin) on scores on the Shanan Sentence Completion Technique, an interview designed to assess perception of change in various areas of everyday living, and on scores on the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Test. Blind subjects showed less psychological and less social engagement with the outer world. Availability of resources, education, and assistance considerably reduced differences between the nonsighted and sighted subjects. These findings were interpreted as pointing to a potentially preventable process of premature aging.