December 14, 2021
A patient with low vision should seek specialised help and ophthalmologist Ana Almeida begins by explaining what this problem consists of:
Generally speaking, low vision can be understood as a person who has less than 30% vision, or a visual field of less than 15 degrees. It can also be understood in a broader form as someone who, despite the best treatments - whether surgical, medical, the best possible glasses - continues to have difficulty carrying out everyday tasks.
And it is for these people that the low vision consultation is for, whose aim is to maximise the visual residue in order to make people independent and able to do the tasks they need in their daily lives.
This is done through optical aids, namely magnifiers, telescopes, optical aids such as lighting, filters, or even electronic aids, basically devices with camera resources that can increase the contrast, enhance the image, or even speak the texts that people are reading.
These large consultations can be found in the large centres, namely the Hospital Centres of Porto, Lisbon, Coimbra, the Gama Pinto Institute, Beatriz Ângelo Hospital and Egas Moniz Hospital. In these hospitals we have the resources to be able to do these consultations.
In general, prevention is always the best medicine. So, in general, we should all be accompanied by an ophthalmologist, but unfortunately we can't always restore sight to its maximum. People who have these limitations are candidates to be able to go to these consultations and we can improve the quality of life of these patients.
Tomorrow we will talk about the relationship between obesity and the eyes.
With the support of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology.
