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Alzheimer's: Vision May Play a Role

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 10, 2009 4:42 PM CDT

(Newser) – Moments of forgetfulness attributed to Alzheimer’s disease could in fact be caused by a loss of vision, the Boston Globe reports, and new research asserts that cranking up contrast—by using colored dinner plates, for instance—could help. “Let’s say you put keys down on the counter and can’t find them,” a researcher says. “People say, ‘Of course she can’t find them—she has Alzheimer’s.’ Well, what if she can’t see them?”

Making Alzheimer’s patients' visual environment easier to discern is a concrete way to improve their quality of life, researchers claim. One scientist found that if the contrast on a letter chart was changed, Alzheimer’s patients could identify the letters as easily as non-sufferers. He also recalls the case of a woman who kept bumping into her dining room table: Her disease prevented her from remembering that she bumped into it, but adding a white tablecloth that contrasted with the dark carpet allowed her to avoid it altogether.

[Images (3)]

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A potential Alzheimer's sufferer. (AP Photo)

Eyeglasses. (Shutterstock)

A potential Alzheimer's sufferer. (Shutterstock)

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Baking, bingo, trying to pick out change out of a purse, trying to pick up a pill that dropped on the floor . . . they’re not essential to live, but they’re pretty essential to operate in society. - Tracy Dunne, Boston University

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