Best Low Vision Reading Aids

Video Transcript

"My name's Dr. Alan Watson. I'm an ophthalmologist in St. Joseph, Missouri, and we're here today to talk about eye problems. Low vision is a state in where they are able to see, but they just don't see very well. And typically, for the elderly and they have trouble reading up close, and so to help those patients that have a degraded image from say macular degeneration magnification's usually the best low vision aid, and so magnifying glasses, making the bifocal very strong where they have to hold it quite close is helpful. Bringing in lots of extra light allows them to see at slightly better resolutions than they would otherwise. And handheld magnification is also helpful for the elderly if they have to just fill out a check, just pay a bill, or something like that. But typically, handheld magnifiers are a little awkward to use, and so it's hard for a patient to to read like the newspaper with the handheld magnification, because they sometimes just magnify a few letters at a time, so it's difficult for the patient to see the whole word and format a word picture in their mind so they can figure out what the news article is all about. This has been Dr. Alan Watson, Ophthalmologist, at St. Joseph, Missouri, discussing different eye problems, and the treatment of different eye problems with you."