Reduced Vision-Related Quality of Life in Dementia: A Preliminary Report.

Background: Despite experimental evidence for concurrent dementia and visual impairment, there are no currently validated vision-related quality of life measures for use in this population.

Objective: To establish the extent to which individuals with mild to moderate dementia self-report visual impairment and determine the efficacy of established vision-related quality of life measures for use in a dementia population.

Methods: We compared vision-related quality of life in participants with mild-moderate dementia to healthy (dementia-free) older adults using two existing questionnaire measures already validated for use in older adults. These were the Visual Activities Questionnaire (VAQ) and the 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (VFQ-25).

Results: Responses on both the VAQ and VFQ-25 revealed a significant effect of dementia on self-reported vision-related quality of life. Visual impairment in dementia was identified in the domains of color discrimination, disability glare, light/dark adaption, acuity/spatial vision, depth perception, peripheral vision, visual search, and visual processing speed. Factor analysis of the data suggested that existing vision-related quality of life measures, designed for use in older adult populations, are likely to provide a robust means of assessing vision-related quality of life in older adults with dementia. This is particularly true of the VAQ, for which one latent factor emerged for both dementia and dementia-free samples.

Conclusion: Using existing measures designed for use in older adult populations, we have shown that people with dementia experience reduced vision-related quality of life.