Signs and

Symptoms
What is Visual Impairment?

"Visual impairment including If you experience any of the following eye

blindness" means an changes, schedule an appointment with
your ophthalmologist or optometrist
impairment in vision that, even immediately, even if you’ve been to your
with correction, adversely eye doctor recently:
Severe, sudden eye pain
affects a child's educational Recurrent pain in or around the eye
performance. This impairment Hazy, blurred, or double vision
Seeing flashes of light or sudden
refers to abnormality of the bright floating spots
eyes, the optic nerve or the Seeing rainbows or halos around lights
Seeing floating “spider webs”
visual center for the brain
Seeing a “curtain coming down” over
resulting in decreased visual one eye
Sensing a “cup filling up with ink” in
acuity.
one eye
Unusual, even painful, sensitivity to
light or glare
Swollen, red eyes
Changes in the color of the iris
White areas in the pupil of the eye
Sudden development of persistent
floaters
Visual
Impairment
Itching, burning, or a heavy discharge
in the eyes
Any sudden change in vision
See also Normal Vision Changes to
help you understand normal age-
related changes in the eyes and your
vision.
 What Do Doctors Do?
Simple tests an ophthalmologist may
What challenges do visually perform include:
impaired people face? Visual acuity test. A person
Dealing with sight loss, already, is a reads an eye chart to
challenge in itself. The lack of emotional measure how well he or she
support at diagnosis centers, the limited sees at various distances.
accessibility to activities and information, Visual field test.
the societal stigma and the lack of Ophthalmologists use this
unemployment, are all factors frequently test to measure side, or
leading blind or low vision individuals in peripheral, vision.
isolation. 50 Tonometry test. This test
determines the fluid
40 pressure inside the eye to
evaluate for glaucoma.
30
If your doctor determines that you
The Facts have an eye condition that is likely to
October is Blindness 20
253 million people are visually cause visual impairment, many
Awareness Month and impaired treatments are available. Options
according to the World 10
81% of people are aged 50 years may include eyeglasses, contact
Health Organization, there and over lenses, and eye drops or other
are 285 million people who
0
Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 Item 4 Item 5 medicines.
are visually impaired
worldwide, 39 million of References
https://www.salusuhealth.com/Eye-Institute/News/News-
whom are completely Stories/Blindness-Awareness-Month.aspx
blind. Blindness is often https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/visual-impairment.html
presented as a completely https://arksped.k12.ar.us/rules_regs_08/3.%20SPED%20ELIGIBILITY%20CRI
TERIA%20AND%20PROGRAM%20GUIDELINES%20FOR%20CHILDREN/PART
incapacitating disability of %20I%20ELIGIBILITY%20CRITERIA%20AGES%205-
21/L.%20VISUAL%20IMPAIRMENT%20INCLUDING%20BLINDNESS.pdf
total vision loss.