Link Between Vision Loss and Cognitive Impairment

Heather Whitson, MD , Scott Cousins, MD, and Diane Whitaker, OD, have a study in press in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society that documents in great detail how the usual services offered to patients with low vision fail to meet the needs of patients with other problems, including cognitive impairment.

“Vision impairment and memory impairment are a really bad combination,” Whitson says.

The researchers conducted more than 600 interviews with 98 patients with macular degeneration and their companions who accompanied them to low-vision training. In most cases, they interviewed each patient and their companion multiple times. The researchers also performed cognitive and vision tests with the patients.

The team just completed a pilot study of the new program, which revealed something surprising; after the low-vision intervention, many of the patients not only were better at performing vision-dependent study tasks, but also showed an improvement in memory scores. “If you are learning a new skill, that’s a cognitive intervention as well,” Whitson says.

The team is now exploring some of the reasons behind the link between macular degeneration and cognitive impairment. They’re recruiting patients with macular degeneration for a study that will use functional MRI to track how these patients’ brain function differs from people of the same age without macular degeneration.

For more details about the link between the eye and the mind, and the study which was funded by the Harford Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, read the original article published on dukehealth.org.

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