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OCR for page 10
PART 1
Introduction
About 25 million Americans are 65 and older. That figure will
double during the next 25 years. Over the next ~ 5 years, the baby boom
generation will swell the ranks of middle-aged workers.
But the numbers tell only half the story. The gradual decline in
visual functioning that usually accompanies aging often goes undetected
or is deemed untreatable.
Older people may have difficulty seeing at night, reading small
print, distinguishing similar colors, or coping with glare from a desktop
or video display terminal. Yet most older Americans do not have severe
impairment, and only about 10 percent have eyesight so poor that they
can barely see the largest printed line on an eye chart. Age-related visual
impairment is highly variable. It may become significant as early as age
40, or it may not pose a problem until well into the 60s or 70s. Unless they
have a major eye problem, however, most workers do not see eye
specialists or undergo regular eye checkups.
Many people think of impaired vision as an inevitable part of
aging for which little can be done. Some fear that if they ask for help, their
job will be in jeopardy. More than likely, most older people are simply
unaware that their eyesight has deteriorated.
Yet there are simple, often inexpensive methods to enhance the
eyesight of older workers. Providing stronger lighting, increasing color
contrast on stairwells, repositioning a desk or video display terminal to
reduce glare these are changes that most companies can afford to make.
Providing regular eye checkups for workers over 40 can catch problems
early, when they can be most effectively treated. In addition, giving older
workers specific job training and encouraging them to practice visual
tasks may help them compensate for their declining sight and profit from
their learning skills and years of expertise.
A corollary is that money invested in retaining older workers with
impaired eyesight may be well spent: older employees take about the
same amount of sick leave and are as productive as their younger
counterparts, according to recent studies.
In short, many businesses, like many workers, are unaware of
methods to improve vision or accommodate impaired vision. Better
vision improves the quality of life for workers and can boost productivity.
What the middle-aged Ben Franklin said about his invention of
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OCR for page 11
"I am a camera, with its shutter open ....
Christopher Tsherwood
When a beam of light reaches the eye, it first encounters
the cornea, a tough, dime-sized membrane that is kept moist and
nourished by tears. The cornea's rounded, bulging shape, like a
convex camera lens, bends light rays together to form an image at
the back of the eyeball. It is the cornea that provides virtually all
the focusing power needed to see objects more than 20 feet from
the eye.
Behind the cornea is the iris, a doughnut-shaped piece of
tissue that is the gateway for light in its journey to the back of the
eye. Opening and closing like a camera's diaphragm, the muscles
of the iris regulate the amount of light entering the pupil, the
opening in the center of the iris. In a dark room, the pupil grows
to 16 times its size in bright light.
Insight passing through the pupil strikes the lens, a trans-
parent structure about the size of a lima bean. For distant objects,
the lens thins and flattens, decreasing its ability to bend light
rays. For nearby objects, which cannot be focused by the cornea
the lens fattens and bulges, increasing focusing.
"double spectacles" (bifocals) holds true today in redesigning the
workplace for older people:
EWithout glasses] ~ cannot distinguish a letter, even of large print,
but am happy in the invention of double spectacles, which serving
for distant objects as well as near ones, make my eyes as useful
to me as ever they were. If all the other defects and infirmities
were as easily and cheaply remedied, it would be worth while for
friends to live a great deal longer.
OCR for page 12
Representative terms from entire chapter:
display terminal
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