Vision Impairment and Dementia

In the October 2024 edition of JAMA Ophthalmology, Jason Smith and colleagues published a study about dementia and visual impairment.

There are many studies of this type, which leads us to believe that improving vision/preventing vision loss is very important in patients with dementia or at risk for dementia.

The most common thing I do in my practice related to this is encouraging those patients at risk to have their cataracts out. Some people are hesitant to have cataract surgery in the setting of dementia, but we think it is especially important in that population.