Healthlinks Upstate March/April 2022

38 | www.Ups tatePhys i c i ansSC . com | www.Hea l thL i nksUps tate. com LIVING WITH LOW VISION By Katherine Waters But vision impairment doesn’t have to be entirely debilitating. With help from an occupational therapist, people with low or no vision can find ways to make the problems that arise in their daily lives much easier to solve. Stasi Gormley is a Mount Pleasant-based occupational therapist with a specialty in low vision therapy. Her work helps people suffering from vision impairment learn how they can continue to handle daily tasks such as reading the paper and preparing food, enjoy their hobbies and stay connected by finding ways to see screens and keyboards. “The people I work with are primarily seniors and some adults that, for the most part, have lived an average life until they had some type of visual diagnosis happen where they can no longer use regular eyeglasses or prescriptions to see things up close, intermediate distance or far away,” said Gormley. “The majority of people I work with have difficulties with reading mail, newspapers, books or magazines but also reading the computer or a phone screen. They may have a hard time being able to operate appliances in their house. Most of the people I see have vision loss to the point where they now can no longer drive and need help knowing how to get transportation to the places they need to go,” she added. Gormley works with her patients in their homes, making the occupational therapy process more accessible and helping them to re-learn how complete their daily tasks. Being in patients’ homes and seeing how they can manage their vision loss also gives Gormley a better idea of their needs. It’s estimated that at least 2.2 billion people around the world suffer from some type of vision impairment. This issue affects people of all ages, although it is much more common in those over the age of 50.

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