Senior Care Observances: Seeing Clearly during Cataract Awareness Month

Senior Care in Calabassas CA

Your vision is something that you use on a daily basis, and when you are young it is easy to take this sense for granted because you use it so much. As you get older, however, the ability to see clearly tends to decline and most elderly adults cope with some degree of vision loss. The leading cause of this vision loss is cataracts, affecting more than half of adults over the age of 75.

Cataracts develop naturally over time, creating a milky film over the surface of the eye and resulting in serious nearsightedness, blurry vision, or a brown or yellow tinge to what you are looking at. In the later stages, cataracts can lead to blindness. June is Cataract Awareness Month, the perfect opportunity for you to make understanding and managing cataracts part of your senior care plan.

Use these tips to help your aging loved ones protect their eyes and manage the development of cataracts throughout the month of June and the rest of the year:

• Monitor their vision. Pay close attention to how your parents behave and have their senior health care services monitor how they interact with the world around them to detect any developing vision problems. Cataracts can form slowly, but early detection allows for faster and more effective treatment, so if you can identify problems with their vision early, you can get your parents in for the proper treatment as soon as possible

• Get proper care. Regular care and monitoring is essential for the health of aging eyes. Make sure your parents get in for a regular eye exam at least once a year and that you bring them in for an appointment with an ophthalmologist if you detect any changes in their vision. Routine care ensures the doctor can detect the early signs of cataracts as they develop

• Protect the eyes. Help prevent the development of cataracts by keeping your seniors’ eyes healthy and strong. Encourage them to always wear sunglasses when they are out in the sun to prevent damage from ultraviolet rays, make sure there is plenty of lighting when they are reading, doing crafts, or watching television, and keep their vision prescriptions up-to-date to limit straining. A healthy diet also supports better eye health, so make sure your parents eat plenty of fruits and vegetables

• Eliminate unhealthy habits. Smoking and drinking alcohol can contribute to and worsen a variety of conditions, including cataracts. Help your elderly parents to eliminate these unhealthy habits

• Make the home safer. Vision loss can put your seniors at increased risk of injury and accidents throughout the home. Make using their home safer and more comfortable by increasing the lighting throughout the home, moving furniture out of the way to create open paths, and eliminate falling hazards such as loose rugs and uneven flooring surfaces

• Support your loved ones. Losing your vision can be a terrifying and isolating experience. Even if your senior loved ones are only in the early phases of cataract development, not being able to see as well as when they were younger can lead to a variety of emotional consequences. Provide nurturing, loving support, including hiring a senior health care services provider to offer companionship and encouragement during this time.

If you or an aging loved one needs senior care services in Calabassas, CA, call Livewell Private Care at (310) 933-4986.  Servicing Los Angeles, CA, and the surrounding areas.