Visual Impairment and its causes among elderly women of rural area of Maharashtra

Abstract

Introduction: Visual impairment (VI) is a public health challenge affecting over 285 million people worldwide, including 39 million blinds. The research both from India and other parts of the world has revealed that VI increases with increasing age. It is also estimated that people aged 50 years and older comprise 65% and 82% of the total visually impaired and blind, respectively. The study is conducted to estimate the prevalence of visual impairment and its causes among elderly women of rural areas. Material and Methods: This study is a Community Based Cross-sectional study carried out in the field practice area of the rural health training center of the Department of Community Medicine. All women (n=260) aged 60 years and above in the study area formed the study population were interviewed by the house-to-house survey. Statistical analysis was done by SPSS .17. Results: Total out of 260 women, 212(81.53%) women had visual impairment. Out of 212 visual impairment participants, causes of low vision were 80.18% cataract, 35.37% operated cataract, 10.37% pterygium, and 2.35% any eye injury or infection. Conclusion: Cataract is the main cause of low vision. Pterygium, eye injury, and infection also cause visual impairment.

Keywords

• Visual impairment
• elderly women
• rural
• cataract
• pterygium