How can blindness affect a person

Have someone bring you to the emergency room for treatment. Depending on the cause of your blindness, immediate treatment may increase your chances for restoring your vision.

Treatment may involve surgery or medication. By 6 to 8 weeks of age, your baby should be able to fix their gaze on an object and follow its movement. By 4 months of age, their eyes should be properly aligned and not turned inward or outward. Blindness is a potential complication if you have diabetes or have a stroke. Other common causes of blindness include:. A thorough eye exam by an optometrist will help determine the cause of your blindness or partial loss of vision.

A pediatrician will screen your baby for eye problems shortly after birth. At 6 months of age, have an eye doctor or pediatrician check your child again for visual acuity, focus, and eye alignment. Your child should be able to pay attention to visual stimuli by 6 to 8 weeks of age. For example, you can use a magnifying glass to read, increase the text size on your computer, and use audio clocks and audiobooks.

Complete blindness requires approaching life in a new way and learning new skills. For example, you may need to learn how to:. A collection of useful tips and resources for having fulfilling adventures. Our first accessible event in the Netherlands that celebrates the entire visually impaired community!

Joy is one of our first Envision App users we had the pleasure of filming for the launch of the Envision Glasses. She opened up her home to us and showed us how she experiences independence at home. How to behave with a guide dog?

Here are five things you should remember when interacting with one. What is visual prosthesis, also known as the bionic eye, and what does it mean for the future of the visually impaired? How these Entrepreneurs are contributing to the Blind Community. Round-up about 5 strong-willed women who have hugely contributed to the low vision and blind community. In times of uncertainty and, let's be honest, boredom, we need to find ways to entertain ourselves. Do blind people dream?

Do blind people use computers? What problems do the visually impaired encounter on a daily basis? Some conditions might result in vision problems for only a short time, but most vision conditions in children stay the same throughout life. Other conditions get worse over time, resulting in poorer vision or blindness as children get older. What is low vision? Your child might have low-to-no vision, blurred vision or loss of side vision.

Or they might not be able to see some colours — this is called colour blindness. Babies might have vision impairment at birth. It can also happen later as a result of disease, injury or a medical condition. Children with vision impairment might have typical-looking eyes. Most babies start to focus on faces and objects by weeks of age. By about weeks, most babies will start smiling at the familiar faces and things they see.

For instance, "A" is represented as one bump. Computer programs and other devices that can "see" turn the words on a page into braille. Hearing is another important sense if a kid has vision problems. Some devices can read out loud what's written on a page. With special equipment, a visually impaired kid can read almost anything.

These kinds of technologies can be helpful in learning. Kids who are blind might attend a special school, or they might attend regular classes, aided by special devices and specialists. Kids who have vision problems will get help from their parents, doctors, and teachers. When they are older, some of them may get a hand — or should we say a paw? These helper dogs are trained to be a blind person's eyes.

That means the dog learns to be very alert to surroundings so he or she can be a good guide for the person. Not only are these dogs great friends, they give blind people independence, so they can accomplish what they want to accomplish. Many blind people have gone on to do amazing things in many different fields, including music, the arts, and even sports. Serious vision problems didn't stop runner Marla Runyan. She was the first legally blind person to ever qualify for the Olympics!

Reviewed by: Jonathan H. Salvin, MD. Larger text size Large text size Regular text size.