Recent diagnosis and vision trouble

willowjayne

My dad was just recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's at age 63. While his memory is a little spotty, the toughest thing he's been dealing with is an increasing loss of vision that they believe is being caused by some small bleeds in the occipital lobe of his brain. He is still almost completely self-sufficient, but can no longer drive safely or read/write very well due to the vision issues. This has been very frustrating for him and the stress of it has been making it harder to focus on things and therefore exacerbating his memory problems. Has anyone else seen this happen to a loved one or have any advice on how to make things a little easier during this time? Thanks in advance.

harshedbuzz

If there's a low vision clinic near you, they may have some suggestions about adaptations to help your dad in his day-to-day life.

https://www.abvimi.org/

SDianeL

welcome. So sorry about your Dad. My husband had vision problems. I took him to the eye doctor and they said his eyes were fine. The problem is that his brain is not able to process what his eyes are seeing. My husband had Alzheimer’s-Posterior Cortical Atrophy. You can Google it to find more info. I’m not saying your Dad has this but it sounds similar. It’s like he’s seeing a scrambled puzzle. So the usual aids for visually impaired won’t help. Neither will Occupational Therapy. In addition with Alzheimer’s your Dad will not have the ability to learn how to live without being able to interpret what his eyes see. I just bought my step Dad who had a stroke and visually impaired but not totally blind, a talking clock that tells the day, date and time and does reminders. Anything like audio books and music. I think your Dad needs 24/7 care. If he is upset or depressed you might want to ask his doctor for medication to help him cope.

SDianeL

Occipital dementia, more accurately known as Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA), is a rare neurodegenerative disorder primarily affecting the occipital lobe, which is responsible for visual processing. This leads to a range of visual and spatial difficulties, such as problems recognizing objects, faces, or words, and impaired judgment of distance. Memory and language may be relatively spared early on, but can decline as the condition progresses. 

SDianeL

https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-dementia/types-of-dementia/posterior-cortical-atrophy