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Improving communication Working with patients who are blind or visually impaired By Maurita Christensen, MS, PhD, CRC
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lmost every physician has had a patient who is blind or vision impaired. As the psychologist for Minnesota State Services for the Blind (SSB), I work exclusively with people who experience vision loss. This article provides some practical tips on working with patients with vision loss, and an overview of resources available through SSB. Legal blindness is defined as central visual acuity of 20/200 or worse with best correction, or a visual field of less than 20 degrees. Typically, visual impairment is visual acuity of 20/60 or worse in the better eye with best correction. However, people with vision loss use a variety of terms to describe themselves—blind, visually impaired, or having low vision. You may want to ask your patients for their personal preference.
Electronic media and children Health implications and the physician’s role By Nusheen Ameenuddin, MD, MPH
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ad, we’re supposed to ask our doctor about Levitra.”
As a newly minted pediatrician, I never expected to deal with a question about a drug for erectile dysfunction, much less one posed by a 4-year-old patient who was simply following instructions put forth in a television ad.
But this experience drove home to me, in a way no statistic could, the power the media had on even the youngest members of society. Years later, I realize how much the media landscape has changed and expanded since that encounter. I think of how we, as physicians, need to understand Electronic media and children to page 10
According to 2010 census data, about 75,000 Minnesotans are legally blind. The National Center for Health Statistics indicates that the number of individuals who are legally blind will double in the next seven years, due in large part to our aging population. It is estimated that rates of vision loss increase nearly 400 percent as one moves from the 18 to 44-year-old bracket to the 70- to 84-year-old bracket. Roughly 17 percent of Minnesotans Improving communication to page 12