Improving Vision Among Older Adults: Behavioral Training to Improve Sight

A major problem for the rapidly growing population of older adults (age 65 and over) is age-related declines in vision, which have been associated with increased risk of falls and vehicle crashes. Research suggests that this increased risk is associated with declines in contrast sensitivity and visu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2015-04, Vol.26 (4), p.456-466
Main Authors: DeLoss, Denton J., Watanabe, Takeo, Andersen, George J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accidental Falls - prevention & control
Accidents, Traffic - prevention & control
Age
Age differences
Aged
Ageing
Aging
Aging - physiology
Automobiles
Behavior modification
Cognitive Therapy - methods
Contrast Sensitivity
Discrimination
Eyes & eyesight
Falls
Female
Geriatrics
Humans
Learning
Male
Noise
Older people
Perception
Performance evaluation
Psychological factors
Sensitivity
Sensory perception
Stimulus
Vision Disorders - psychology
Vision Disorders - rehabilitation
Visual acuity
Visual Acuity - physiology
Visual perception
Visual task performance
Young Adult
Youth
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Summary:A major problem for the rapidly growing population of older adults (age 65 and over) is age-related declines in vision, which have been associated with increased risk of falls and vehicle crashes. Research suggests that this increased risk is associated with declines in contrast sensitivity and visual acuity. We examined whether a perceptual-learning task could be used to improve age-related declines in contrast sensitivity. Older and younger adults were trained over 7 days using a forced-choice orientation-discrimination task with stimuli that varied in contrast with multiple levels of additive noise. Older adults performed as well after training as did college-age younger adults prior to training. Improvements transferred to performance for an untrained stimulus orientation and were not associated with changes in retinal illuminance. Improvements in far acuity in younger adults and in near acuity in older adults were also found. These findings indicate that behavioral interventions can greatly improve visual performance for older adults.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797614567510