How to Help Your Senior Cope with Glaucoma

Most people with glaucoma may experience diminished vision, but don’t completely go blind. Glaucoma can be treated, but not completely cured. If your senior can reduce the pressure in her eyes quickly enough, she may not experience permanent vision loss. With an early diagnosis, your elderly family member can still maintain her quality of life.

Encourage Her to Keep Her Eye Appointments

Sometimes people with a serious eye issue like glaucoma are reluctant to continue seeing their eye doctor. They often feel that their eyes are already in trouble, so why bother going to the eye doctor? The reality is that her eyes still need to be monitored and there may be a lot more that her eye doctor can do to help her to manage the symptoms that she’s experiencing.

Help Her Collect Information about Glaucoma

Just getting a diagnosis of glaucoma can be scary. Your senior may know that she’s at risk of becoming blind, but that might be all that she knows about glaucoma. Helping her to collect as much information as possible about glaucoma ensures that your elderly family member knows what she’s up against with her eye health. It also helps to educate you about what’s going on.

Consider a Support Group

Your senior doesn’t have to go through this alone. Glaucoma is actually a lot more common than many people think it is. If your aging family member has friends with glaucoma, they can share a lot of what they know with her. Support groups are another great idea, though. These groups can introduce your elderly family member to lots of other people who also have glaucoma. Those people can share what they’ve done to cope and how they’ve gotten through the difficult parts.

Find Alternatives for Activities that Are Becoming Difficult

In the earliest stages of glaucoma your elderly family member might not notice much difference in her daily activities. But as the disease progresses, she might find it difficult to do regular activities, like driving. Having home care providers available to drive for her can make it less likely that she’ll keep trying to drive just for the sake of driving.

As your elderly family member’s glaucoma progresses, she’ll hopefully be in a better position to weather those changes gracefully. If she does experience aspects of the disease that she doesn’t anticipate, help her to find the right solutions for where she is right now.

If you or an aging loved one are considering homecare in Monroe, NJ, please contact the caring staff at Care Street Home Care Serving Somerset and Middlesex/Union Counties today. Call (732) 607-8870.