title: Visual acuity estimates in noncommunicative elderly persons.
abstract: The acuity card procedure has been shown to provide reliable grating acuity estimates in pediatric patients. The current study was conducted to determine the usefulness of this procedure in another group of persons in whom conventional acuity measurements are not possible, ie, nursing home residents who suffer from dementing disorders. Binocular visual acuity estimates were obtained in 13 cognitively impaired nursing home residents. Test sessions took 20-30 min each. Both test-retest agreement and inter-observer agreement of Teller Acuity Card (TAC) acuity estimates were good (within 0.5 octave for all residents), demonstrating that this procedure yields reasonable acuity estimates in noncommunicative nursing home residents. The authors stress the potential of this tool for nursing home administrators as well as for researchers.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute, Hebrew Home of Greater Washington, Rockville, MD 20852.
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Marx
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Werner
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cohen-Mansfield
authors.forename: E E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Hartmann
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000150:complications; D003704:Dementia / Q000150:complications; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009735:Nursing Homes; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000150:complications; D014787:Vision Tests / Q000379:methods*; D015348:Vision, Binocular; D014792:Visual Acuity