Adults with poor vision are at increased risk of early death according to a recent study from the Westmead Millenium Institute in Sydney, Australia, published in the Archives of Ophthalmology.

Researchers found that in a group of adults between 49 and 74, those with noncorrectable vision problems were 35% more likely to die than people with unimpaired vision.

Michael J. Karpa and colleagues analyzed data from the Blue Mountains Eye Study, in which 3,654 Australians over the age of 49 were examined between 1992 and 1994, with follow-up exams at five and ten years. Patients were considered to have noncorrectable visual impairment if they presented with vision worse than 20/40 in the better eye after subjective refraction. The researchers compared these eye health data with Australian mortality records. They found that 13 years after the study started, 1,273 of the participants had died, and that those with vision problems were more likely to die.

Finding showed that difficulty walking, which is often a result of vision problems, is the most significant risk factor. According to the researchers, people who have difficulty walking may be less likely to visit a doctor regularly (for an exam or to get prescriptions for important medications filled). They also may have a poorer diet, be less likely to exercise, be socially isolated, and be less likely to seek urgent help. Previous studies found that people were also prone to other factors that can raise mortality risk, such as unintentional injury, depression, increased risk of falls, and cardiovascular disease.

If adults in the developed world risk early death from poor vision and blindness, in the developing world the risks are higher. Here at Seva we receive terrible stories and photos of blind adults and blind children who have suffered terrible accidents and endured harsh lives because of their vision impairment.

The good news is that for 80% of the world’s blind, there is a solution in sight — their vision loss is either treatable or preventable.

Visit www.seva.ca for more information.

Source: medpagetoday

Today The Province ran a lengthy article on Seva Canada’s sight programs. Our thanks to Elaine O’Connor for the following great story:

World Sight Day is around the corner and here at Seva Canada we have a host of local and national events aimed at raising awareness of blindness among girls and women. Our national video contest, Her Sight Is Worth It (www.hersight.ca), has been featured in Canadian Teacher magazine and the BC Teacher’s Federation newsletter.

The idea is simple: create a 3-minute video on the topic of gender and blindness. Winners will be featured in the World Community Film Festival in 8 locations across Canada starting in January 2010.  First prize is a MacBook computer, second prize is a Flip video camera and all three winners will have the sight restored to a woman and a girl in their names.

On World Sight Day itself, Seva Canada is having a party. Two hundred people will be attending Seva’s Eye Opener Benefit in Vancouver, featuring a 9-piece R&B dance band, a silent auction, door prizes and our special guest, Dr. Paul Courtright, the world expert on gender and blindness. Dr. Courtright arrives this evening in Vancouver and will be in Canada until October 11, where he’ll be meeting with government representatives in Ottawa and Vancouver and doing media interviews about his work in Africa with the Kilimanjaro Centre for Community Ophthalmology and the barriers that women and girls face in accessing eye care.

Seva Canada is using World Sight Day as a launching pad for a year-long campaign to raise awareness about the 30 million women and girls who are blind. That is a staggering number… almost the population of Canada. It’s been said before that people don’t go blind by the millions, but one personal tragedy at a time. Here’s a story we just got from the amazing team at Seva Tibet about one of those 30 million tragedies…

Chime Dolkar, blind from bilateral cataracts, has spent the last two years barely surviving by begging on the streets of Nakchu, nomadic town at an elevation of 4500 meters in northern Tibet. Since the age of 4, her little daughter Tashi has led her blind mother by the right hand through the streets, trying to get enough food to keep them both from starving. At night, they would crawl into a small and nearly worn-out tent stationed near a bridge in the upper town.

Chime and her daughter Tashi after one eye surgery Seva Tibet

There were times Tashi, now 6, begged by herself, telling her mother to rest in the tent. Several weeks ago, Tashi was begging on the street where the Civil Affairs office was located when an official, who was aware Chime’s blindness, told the little girl that a Seva medical team from Lhasa would be doing free surgeries for the blind and would be arriving in one week. He encouraged Tashi to talk her mother for treatment.

Tashi ran back to the tent with the great news. Chime reacted rather indifferently from hearing it and responded, “Surgery? Why would I want that? I am destined to become blind. It’s better for me to comply with my fate.” Poor Tashi didn’t really understand that much about destiny, fate and all that complicated hypothesis, and disagreed with her mom by saying, “Nothing is fixed. If you keep trying to change things for the better, what you call ‘fate’ will be different. Why don’t you try the surgery? It’s free. Please give it try, mom, please!”

Chime agreed, counting off the days until the Seva-funded medical team’s arrival. As each day passed, their excitement escalated. When the medical team arrived they diagnosed Chime with bilateral cataracts and on the first day of the camp Chime’s had cataract surgery on her left eye. Later, on the third day, she had surgery on her right eye.

Nothing in her 48 years of life had so transformed Chime’s life as listening to her daughter’s advice and regaining her sight through surgeries. Until then, Chime said that her life was “totally meaningless and a failure”. The sight-restoration surgery has given Chime new hope and confidence. She is anxious to re-plan both her and Tashi’s life. No longer forced to beg, Chime is planning on asking the local government for a job at the Nakchu train station. Smiling, she says, “I will be very happy if I can work at the railway station…I can work as a garbage cleaner or security guard.” She gazes at Tashi and continues, “Tashi should be going to first grade of elementary school. Wow, life is not that bad after all!”

Her sight IS worth it.