Does Vision Loss Have an Emotional Impact on Your Senior?
June 29, 2020
Many older adults find their vision changing, but your senior may be losing her vision completely, for one reason or another. You may find that connected with that change, your elderly family member’s emotional health is taking a bit of a hit, too.
Loss Causes Grief
Any type of loss causes grief, so when you’re talking about your senior losing one of her senses, she’s going to experience some grief around that event. Losing her sight may be especially difficult for your elderly family member if she’s always enjoyed hobbies and activities that rely on sight. If she’s considered herself a visual learner, she may also experience some extra grief over the loss.
Isolation Is Common
Big changes, like losing the ability to see, can cause your elderly family member to withdraw. She may worry that she won’t be accepted the way that she was in the past or she may feel as if she just doesn’t have the same value to friends and family that she had before. That’s not the case, of course, but that may still be how she feels. Helping her to avoid isolation is always good but can be especially important in this case.
Her Identity May Feel Altered
Your elderly family member may feel as if she doesn’t know who she is anymore or how she fits into the world. That’s a surprising part of identity, sometimes. Changes in something your aging family member can’t control at all can feel as if they fundamentally alter who she is. The rest of the family may not agree with that in the slightest, but again, it’s part of how this experience causes her to feel about herself.
She Needs the Right Help
Learning to deal with the changes that her vision loss creates gives your senior a leg up in managing her emotions and the practical aspects of what’s going on. With help from you and from home care providers, your elderly family member is less likely to be worried about how she’s going to accomplish tasks that need to be done. She can rely on people helping her and accommodating her along the way.
Your elderly family member is a complex human being and won’t respond in the ways you might expect her to respond sometimes. During a time of loss, especially when she’s losing something valuable to her, she’s likely to have a stronger reaction than you might have been able to predict.
If you or your loved one is looking for Home Care or Placement Services in San Jose, CA, please call Familiar Surroundings Home Care.
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