Eye exam

Cat K

It's time for our yearly eye exam. I'm not sure if the eye doctor will be able to do the exam on DH because he sits, stands and walks hunched over. Honestly he looks like a turtle, the way he hangs his head down. I don't know if he'll be able to put his chin in the machine and look straight ahead, let alone read the eye chart. Has anyone else had this problem?

Timmyd

I am concerned about the same thing for the next time DW needs an eye exam. I express this concern to a friend in the medical profession. She told me that eye exams are routinely administered to people with wide range of disabilities and a decent optometrist should be able to accommodate. When I thought about that it did make sense. Just be sure and have a conversation with them prior to his appointment so that they know what to expect.

Ultimately, how much has his vision changed since last exam and how important is it in his condition that he has perfect vision? DW normally will not even wear her glasses unless I reminder her.

Cat K

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/255574#Comment_255574

My DH is the same way. He rarely wears his glasses unless I remind him. I've asked him why he isn't wearing them, and he'll say he doesn't know where they are, even though they're on his nightstand where they always are. He seems to do fine without them. I did tell them that he has dementia, but I didn't even think of him having to put his face and chin close to the machine until today. 🙄

Vitruvius

I took my DW to the ophthalmologist. The glaucoma check went OK but she could not respond properly for the eye exam portion (you know…which is better, this or this?) so I told the doctor to just stop it. Her eyesight was pretty good without glasses and she was starting to not wear them anyway. Soon she wouldn’t wear her glasses at all and didn’t seem bothered. Once they stop being able to read or seriously watch tv does it really matter? As long as their eyesight is passable I wouldn’t worry too much about it. My DW also soon reached a stage where she was having trouble understanding what she was seeing at a brain level (this was discussed in a recent thread), the quality of her eyesight wasn’t the issue.

SDianeL

unless there are medical reasons for an eye exam I wouldn’t put him through it. As the disease progresses they no longer read. Many won’t wear their glasses or they break them or lose them. He won’t be able to answer the questions the doctor asks. If glaucoma is a concern you could just have them do that part.

GothicGremlin

I struggled with this for my sister. But her experience was like the others in this thread; after awhile she forgot she even wore glasses. She lost the ability to read fairly early on, and TV went away by early stage 6, so I gave up on glasses. And again like others have said, she didn't seem terribly bothered by it, so my thought was why go through the trauma of getting her into, and out of, the car, and then the rigamarole of getting into the chair and trying to understand and answer questions? It just wasn't worth it.

Goodlife2025

@ Vitruvius……My DW also soon reached a stage where she was having trouble understanding what she was seeing at a brain level (this was discussed in a recent thread), the quality of her eyesight wasn’t the issue. This phenomenon seems to have started for us back in stage 4 although I didn't understand back then that it was her brain not processing what she was looking at. Looking right at something and not seeing it or what her brain told her it was seeing was not the camera she had been searching everywhere for. This went away for a while in early stage 5 and seems to have returned as we come to the end of stage 5. No eye exams will be added to the list of tests no longer useful….

harshedbuzz

@Cat K

Given your description of your DH's posture, it's might not be worth an eye exam. By stage 6, most PWD have begun to disregard things like glasses. This is often due to changes in visual processing that make vision correction pointless.

As with any routine screening in a terminal condition/extreme elderly person, what would you do with the information? If they diagnosed glaucoma or AMD, would it progress enough to become symptomatic in their lifetime? Would they tolerate treatment?

HB

Cat K

Thank you all for sharing your experiences and advice. His posture is very concerning to me. I gave him his glasses this morning and he said he could see the TV better, so I doubt he would need a new prescription for glasses. It's just not worth it, putting him through that.