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. 2024 Jun 1;64(6):gnad169.
doi: 10.1093/geront/gnad169.

Everyday Challenges for Individuals Aging With Vision Impairment: Technology Implications

Elena T Remillard  1 , Lyndsie M Koon  2 , Tracy L Mitzner  3 , Wendy A Rogers  4
Affiliations

Everyday Challenges for Individuals Aging With Vision Impairment: Technology Implications

Elena T Remillard et al. Gerontologist. .

Abstract

Background and objectives: There are growing numbers of older adults with long-term vision impairment who are likely to experience everyday activity challenges from their impairment in conjunction with age-related changes. Technology has potential to support activity engagement. To develop effective technologies and interventions, we need to understand the context of activity challenges and identify unmet support needs.

Research design and methods: The Aging Concerns, Challenges, and Everyday Solution Strategies (ACCESS) study is a mixed-method approach to explore everyday challenges of people aging with long-term disabilities. Participants included 60 adults aging with long-term vision impairment (63% female; M age = 67, SD = 4.6) who completed in-depth, structured interviews exploring the nature of everyday challenges and their unmet support needs for activity engagement. We conducted a content analysis using a deductive and inductive approach to build a detailed coding scheme of challenge codes and subcodes.

Results: The analyses provided detailed insights about the nature of challenges people aging with vision impairment experience when performing specific instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) in the context of home maintenance, transportation, shopping/finance, and managing health. Vision-related challenges and participation restrictions were identified for several activities that require reading, navigation, and identification (e.g., shopping, medication management, public transportation). Emergent challenge themes for performing IADLs included personal limitations (e.g., physical, cognitive, financial) and environmental barriers (e.g., accessibility, technology, transportation).

Discussion and implications: Contextual examples of IADL challenges among individuals aging with vision impairment highlight opportunities for technology design and innovation to support participation in everyday activities.

Keywords: Aging with disability; Blind; Community participation; Instrumental activities of daily living; Low vision.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) categories. Some participants reported more than one category as “Most Difficult” yielding 183 total response.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Treemap displaying proportion of challenge codes (n = 257) reported across 17 activities. Data are presented in nested rectangles that each represent distinct challenge codes, proportional in size to the number of times the challenge was reported across activities. Within each rectangle (1) the frequency of each challenge type is listed below the name of each challenge and (2) the presence of an activity icon indicates the challenge type was reported for that activity (challenge codes reported fewer than three times excluded from figure).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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