In part two of this two part webinar – first broadcast on Tuesday 31st March 2020 – Dr Marianne Coleman a Research Orthoptist from the University of Surrey present her research, funded by Fight for Sight and the Royal Society of Medicine.
People living with dementia can experience unique difficulties when trying to cope with problems with their eyesight, and are at greater risk of treatable sight loss. such as cataract (cloudy lens inside the eye) and out of date spectacles. Anecdotally, people living with dementia can experience problems with judging distances, which can increase their risk of trips and falls. This can occur as part of dementia because the eyes and the brain must work together closely to produce our view of the world.
Problems with judging distances are described as being common in dementia, but actually there’s little research exploring how people living with dementia see, and whether this changes as dementia progresses. Should every person living with dementia have a sight test when they get diagnosed and every year after? What changes in eyesight should eyecare professionals be on the look out for? What are some dementia-friendly ways of testing eyesight? Answering these questions is part of the research being undertaken by Marianne.
First broadcast on Tuesday 31st March 2020 hosted by Adam Smith, Programme Director at the Office of the NIHR National Director for Dementia Research, University College London.
If you would like to present your own lecture drop us a line to dementiaresearcher@nihr.ac.uk
Adam Smith
Emily Spencer
Dr Beth Eyre