Visual impairment and physical and mental health comorbidities

The prevalence of visual impairment (VI) increases rapidly with age. It is estimated that more than one in 10 of the older UK population suffer from significant visual impairment, and this rises to one in three of those more than 90 years old.¹ Unfortunately, it is also the older age group that are at higher risk of having multiple health conditions or ‘comorbidities’ – both physical and mental.

For the VI patient additional health problems can compromise both health and rehabilitation outcomes, including reduced quality of life, disability and increased inpatient admissions.^2-7

Although we know that visual impairment is common in the older population, there is limited data that describes the nature and extent of comorbidities in this group. Crews and Van Nispen^8,9 both reported studies which identified that comorbidities are more common in people with visual impairment. However, these studies were limited by self-report measures and by a relatively limited number of assessed comorbid conditions. Furthermore, neither of these studies were in a UK context.