has anyone here had to get new glasses for your PWD?

markus8174

My DW is getting pretty far in her AD journey. She knows me, and I got a great hug today, but conversation is pretty much me parroting her last words or offering simple observations. When I visited her at the nursing home today, I found her glasses mangled beyond repair on her dresser. I called her eye doctor's office and got "Well, her prescription is over 4 years old. She'll have to have a new exam" even after I explained she was in late stage AD, almost nonverbal, and couldn't read an eye chart if her life depended on it. She really doesn't need them to read, although she enjoys sounding out words in the newspaper or on random signs. Without her glasses she's as cross-eyed as a bat and needs the prisms to keep her from seeing double. It also causes bad headaches when she goes without them for long. Is an exam even possible for someone in her condition?  Has anyone had sucess getting an exam done and improving their loved one's quality of life when they had reached this point in their disease? It isn't just visual acuity, but she is still ambulatory enough to get to the toilet and back to her chair if no one is around to help. (I hope they have a good upholstery cleaner. Paperwork is no longer her strong suit.) She won't make it through the door frame 2x out of 3 without her glasses.

ladyzetta

Hi Markus,

Maybe a pair from OTC would help a little. My DH needed glasses for reading but he always got his at BiMart. The Lions Club might be a good place to call all the glasses I have donated go to the Lions Club. They might be able to give you the perfect pair. I agree she would not be able to do an eye test and I guess I am surprised her eye Doctor could not help you.

If her glasses are not crushed too bad maybe one of those just do glasses place could see what the prescription is. My glasses if you look at the lenses the right way there are some numbers faintly visible, I think that might be the prescription.

I hope this helps you a bit. It is nice hearing from you please take care of yourself. Hugs Zetta 

sandwichone123

I agree that Lion's club may be a best bet. Save the lenses if they're ok. A glasses shop can examine the lenses to see what the Rx is of them. Also, do you have an old pair on hand? I generally try to keep old glasses at least 2-3 sets back in case of need.

fayth

I took my DH for an eye exam when he was somewhere in stage 6. .  I don't know what I was thinking....  He could not participate in the eye exam whatsoever.  We ended up with the eye doctor renewing the old prescription, which was really the only thing to do.  Do you think you could have your primary doctor ask for the prescription to be renewed?  Or, does the nursing home have any suggestions or ability to advocate?

Lills

I agree with Sandwichone123 that your DW's lenses can be replicated without an exam.   I would definitely call the Dr.'s office again and ask to talk to the manager or doctor directly.  This sounds crazy to me!  Obviously, she can't come in for an eye exam.

Vitruvius

I had an elderly relative who wanted a back up pair of glasses but didn’t want a visit for a new prescription. They still had the old out of date prescription info and also felt the glasses were still fine.  I solved this for them by ordering a pair from a discount online service using the old prescription info, the online site didn’t care about the date of the info.  You just fill out an online form, pick out the frame and lense choices. 

They were of course made overseas, but they arrived in about three weeks. They were also incredibly inexpensive, but we chose a durable frame and they proved to be quite good quality. My relative thought they corrected their vision the same as their original pair. I only got one pair but I noted they had a significant discount off the already low prices for a second pair ordered at the same time (which did not need to be the same prescription BTW).

JJ401

If an exam is necessary, I’d look for an eye doctor who works with young children. The doctor might be able to do the same type of exam they do with toddlers. 

But, if you feel the glasses are fine, I’d go with online ordering. My son bought some for himself last year, and they are fine. He used the online line instructions and even measured his own PD.

From my mom’s time at the nursing home, I know things can happen to glasses. She had her hair done in the nursing home beauty parlor, and when she left there she was wearing someone else’s glasses. Hers never turned up. So while I was at the eye doctor for my exam, I talked to the eye doctor about my DH. The eye doctor put his PD on the prescription so I’d have it for future use if needed. 

CStrope

I recently took my DH in for his eye exam, but he is only late 4 or early 5.  The one suggestion I will give you is to make sure her new glasses are as close to her old ones as possible.

My DH was intent on getting a totally different style that his old pair.  No matter how many times I suggested ones similar style as his old ones, he still insisted on a totally new look. When his new glasses came, he really struggled to get used to the progressive lens.  Since the lens size and shape was different than his old ones, it caused an adjustment problem for him.

harshedbuzz

Markus-

This is a difficult situation.

There are laws regarding prescription eyewear that are going to make this difficult to impossible. 

Just as with prescriptions for medication, prescriptions for lenses expire and can no longer be filled/re-filled. The glasses donated to the Lions Club are distributed in other countries; laws in the U.S. prohibit the distribution of used prescription eyewear. 

I see 3 possible options, but before I did this, I would run the idea by her neurologist. As the disease progresses, visual processing changes so the previous issues she has had may no longer trouble her.  

1. If the lenses are in decent shape, you could take them to an optician and have them inserted into a new frame. I'd look for something sturdy and label them.

2. Does your wife's facility have a visiting Doctor of Optometry affiliated? My own eye doc visits two facilities monthly to provide care for residents who can no longer easily leave. 

3. Another option would be to hire medical transport to take her to an appointment if only to meet the criteria to allow the doctor to write a new prescription. If you have an eye hospital or teaching hospital reasonably close, they may have a clinic that sees patients who are unable to fully cooperate in a standard exam.

abc123

Dear Markus, the situation you are dealing with is ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF the red tape we are forced to struggle with everyday. We could include your situation to the post from Josey Whale! I used “red tape”to be polite. If I would go into detail about how I really feel about what you are experiencing I’d get kicked out of the group and banned from social media. 

I sincerely hope you will be able to find some type of “work around” so your dear wife will get a new pair of glasses. Just so you know, I respect you a great deal. I think of you and your dear wife often. You are a warrior on her behalf. Please let us know how this plays out. 

Jo C.

If my LOs glass frames had been ruined, I would simply and quickly have the lenses placed in new frames.

My LOs glasses were lost in a NH.  I did contact her Opthalmologist's office and spoke to the Office Manager explaining the dementia problems in detail explaining my LO would never have been able to perform an exam and had been routinely using her glasses from the old prescription and doing well with them.    The Manager spoke to the doctor who right away approved using the outdated prescription for a new pair.

I immediately bought two pair and asked for "emergency" processing as the glasses were desperately needed for basic sight; that was honored.   Had her name etched onto the frames in case the glasses wandered.   I kept the extra pair at home for a "just in case" loss of the NH pair. Never had to use them and donated both pairs after my LOs death.

J.

toolbeltexpert

I got my dw new glasses last year, she doesn't wear them.  FYI They can take those lenses  and put them in a machine that can read the prescription  and then get new ones made.  I have had that done before.

Rescue mom

I got my DH, solid stage 6, an eye exam with a really good eye doc, and new Rx, which was badly needed. But right off the bat, for Markus, I *think* the easiest thing for you would be to just get someone to copy the Rx in her former glasses. If that’s legally possible now. The prisms can be tricky.

But for others….there are, at least around here, eye docs that specialize in dealing with Alzheimer’s patients. (As someone else mentioned, some also deal with very young children who don’t even know letters) 

I got names from my local Alzheimer’s Association, and the doc we got was wonderful. My DH could identify some letters, but that was not the only diagnostic method used. It was a very different exam from those I get. A big thing for DH is he is very uncomfortable around strangers, but this doc has a gift in handling that.

I also have to have prisms. Don’t know if there’s more than one kind of prism, but the ones I need are not available OTC at all. They are tricky to even get done right by order. The national less-expensive chains were big fails IME.

If you think it’s really needed, and your DH is mobile, it might be worth exploring to find an eye doc who handles a lot of dementia patients.

A. Marie

So far, I think fayth has the best suggestion. Contact your wife's eye doctor, explain the situation, and ask for the old prescription to be renewed.

Margueritejudy

I took my stage 3-4 sister to a top notch ophthalmologist for an eye exam. The difficult part was when the doctor switches between different lenses to see which one is better: “Is #2 better or. #3, etc.” However, since my sister’s executive function is impaired, the doctor was going too fast for her to make a correct decision, even though we told the doctor she has dementia. As a result, we got a prescription and filled it at LensCrafters. Thank goodness they have a 100% money back guarantee. My sister could not see out of the new glasses. We weren’t sure if it was because it was her first time with transition lenses instead of regular bifocals. We got our money back and went to a different ophthalmologist for another exam. We told him what happened and that he would need to go slow when he got to the “choosing which lens” part. It turned out my sister’s new script was barely different from old eye glasses so he said she could just keep them, which was great. We showed him the prescription from the other doctor and he said it was really off. My sister is now happily continuing to wear her old glasses.

So get new frames for the current lenses or get a copy of the current prescription and get new glasses. 

Arrowhead

My wife had her eyes checked last year. Instead of a printed wall chart, I think they used some type of projection chart and she couldn't understand what it was she was suppose to look at. I think she needs new glasses but I have no idea how they can determine what she needs.

Bill_2001

My dear wife's eye doctor is a godsend. She uses charts that show one letter at a time, and she told me that she has simpler charts available to help test my loved one's eyes beyond that. Her eye doctor is fabulous to say the least. In addition, early in this journey, my wife's eye doctor was so helpful and understanding that I am still in awe.

The eye doctor also uses equipment to look inside my wife's eyes, with no input needed from my sweetie. She calls us regularly to check on both of us.

If your eye doctor is not effective, find another one. Good ones are out there.

JoseyWales

My first thought was that there are doctors who fit glasses for babies, and they obviously can't say how they're seeing things. So there has to be someone out there that works with people with dementia.

Believe it or not, this is something that went RIGHT for us!

I took DH last summer. I thought it would be the last opportunity before he got worse. I was wrong - he was worse than I thought. He couldn't say any of the letters, forget the #1 #2 better or worse. 

But the doctor was a pro. He had pictures that he usually uses for kids, and we used those. DH could only recognize and name 2 of the pictures. But that was good enough! They ended up using his old prescription, because it didn't seem that DH had vision that was much off the last one. 

And now we're good for 2 years. I bought him a new pair of glasses. Recently he's started taking the glasses off and doesn't care if they're on or not.

markus8174

Just an update. Thanks all for your input. The optical center refused to just remake her old Rx and required a new exam(sure). No one carries her current frames. I was able to get a copy of her old Rx but it didn't look right. The miserable optometrist that did her exam included NO prisms. My DW has had prisms in her glasses since she was 16. Makes more sense that her daily headaches became much worse the last couple years she was at home. I have had an exam with this doc and had to go elsewhere and have a new Rx made because she didn't even come close with my Rx either. She spent most of the appointment with me trying to up-sell me various "specially made for their center" supplements or eye drops for conditions I don't have. She must have gotten her training at one of the "buy-here pay-here" car lots.  The short version: The NH where my DW lives has an ophthalmologist who sees patients there. It will be 4 weeks before he can see her and another 2 or 3 before her new glasses will be finished. I doubt greatly that she will be willing to use the glasses after that much time, but it is the only path left open to me for now.  Wish us luck!