The College of Optometrists

The College of Optometrists and the British Geriatrics Society today released the document entitled The Importance of Vision in Preventing Falls. This has been endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners and recommends that all people undergoing a falls assessment should be screened for visual impairment and those identified as suffering from a visual impairment should have a full eye examination.

The document states that visual impairment is strongly associated with falls and hip fractures and that adding treatment of poor vision to exercise and hazard management in the home, produced an additional 14% reduction in the annual fall rate. “Older people and their supporting health care professionals should be aware of the importance of regular eye examinations. It is vital that people identified as suffering from visual impairment, such as the many that are in residential care or nursing homes who are at an increased risk of falls, have full and regular eye examinations by optometrists,” said Frank Munro, President of the College of Optometrists.

Other recommendations made in the document include the local development of mechanisms to encourage awareness and uptake of benefits available to the visually impaired; that measures be taken to optimize the visual environment for older people with visual impairment to reduce fall risk factors and the development and use of audit tools to test the effectiveness of the locally agreed services.