A Sight to See

By: Carly Green
Date: October 6, 2014

Helping low vision patients adapt to their vision loss

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Low vision is chronic vision impairment that cannot be fixed by contact lenses, glasses, surgery or medicine. Tiffany Chan, O.D., F.A.A.O., an optometrist at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Bayview, explains that this loss of vision is typically caused by age-related eye conditions, such as macular degeneration, glaucoma or diabetic eye disease. These conditions can cause a person to lose their central and/or peripheral vision, and affect their ability to read, watch television or drive.

Dr. Chan offers vision rehabilitation services to help improve the lives of patients with uncorrectable vision loss. “Vision rehabilitation is tailored to the unique needs of the individual patient and takes into consideration many of the physical and emotional concerns that can accompany changes in vision,” she says. “It’s kind of like going to physical therapy, but we’re training patients how to do things to maximize the vision they have.”

Patients can regain much of their independence by incorporating new strategies and visual assistive devices such as lenses, electronic magnification, filters, computer accessibility software and telescopes.

To make an appointment or for more information about vision rehabilitation, call 410-550-2360.