Actionsets help people take an active role in managing a health condition.  Managing poor eyesight from diabetes

What? - What is the medical information or key concepts related to the action? What do I do first?

Find your vision strengths. Adapting your lifestyle to poor eyesight is sometimes challenging and can involve changes in the way you do the activities you enjoy. However, if you use your vision strengths, you can continue to do most—if not all—of your usual activities.

Find your vision strengths. Contact your local or provincial organization for the visually impaired for a low-vision evaluation to determine the limitations of your eyesight and what changes might help you take advantage of your strengths. A low-vision specialist can help you train your eyes to look around your blind spots. For example, if you have lost central vision, you can train your eyes to look at objects from your outer vision areas.

There are also many vision aids that are specially made for people who have poor eyesight, such as magnifiers that enlarge printed materials and special papers with bold lines for writing checks. A good low-vision evaluation can help you determine which vision aids would be most helpful for you.

Test Your Knowledge

Decide whether the following is true or false to see whether you understand what it means to adapt to poor eyesight.

  1. Having a low-vision evaluation will help identify my vision strengths.

    1. True
    2. False

Continue to Why? - Why the action is important? Why is it important to be able to adapt to my vision?
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Author: Monica RhodesLast Updated: May 31, 2007
Medical Review: Anne C. Poinier, MD - Internal Medicine
Steven T. Charles, MD - Ophthalmology
Andrew Swan, MD, CCFP, FCFP - Family Medicine

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