Low Vision
Travel Suggestions
If you are experiencing difficulties travelling safely and independently, the following hints may be of use to you. If these remarks are insufficient for your needs or if you continue to feel unsafe, the services of an Orientation and Mobility Specialist may be needed. These services are available through the CNIB.
Traffic Signals
If you have difficulty locating or seeing traffic signals, watch instead the flow of parallel traffic (on the street you are walking along). The traffic will surge forward with the start of the green light. Cross only with the first surge of parallel traffic to give yourself maximum crossing time. It is safer to wait than to be caught in the middle of a change of light. Waiting on the corner for the parallel surge and looking before stepping onto the street are the best indicators to drivers that you intend to cross. Be especially careful of traffic turning right at your corner. Note: it is better to avoid crossing at crosswalks where there is no traffic control. It is far safer to walk the extra distance to a traffic light or stop sign.
Asking for Help
You may need to ask for help in seeking other visual information that is obvious to fully sighted people, such as a street name, or merchandise in a store. Simply explain to people that you do not see well or that you have a vision problem. This tends to result in more understanding responses, and it also demonstrates your realistic command of the situation.
Color and Contrast
Take special note of colors and contrasts to help you. Sidewalks appear light against the green grass. Often an approaching street will be darker than the sidewalk because it is asphalt (blacktop). Curbs are often seen as dark lines due to shadows, or they may be painted yellow near the corners.
The Sighted Guide Technique
If at times you feel more comfortable being guided by someone, hold your guide's arm just above the elbow so you are a step behind and to the side. The sighted guide technique allows you to take an active role in travelling while being guided and gives you the opportunity to interpret and utilize guide-initiated cues and information you might otherwise miss from the environment.
Stop! Look! Listen!
For people with partial sight, crossing the street can become a major undertaking. There are some very important skills one can use to be in control and make every street crossing safe.
Listen to traffic and observe patterns. Can you tell if one street is busier than another?
At what distance are you first aware that cars are there? Do you hear them or see them first?
Take Charge of Street Crossings
Some people use optical aids to see traffic signals and other people watch traffic flow to determine whether it is safe to cross. There are several things to remember when using either procedure.
Stand directly across from the corner you wish to reach. While waiting, stay a full stride back from the curb to allow an extra margin of safety. This is a good time to view the pedestrian signal with your distance visual aid. This waiting position also communicates your intention to cross to drivers.
Wait for the parallel flow of traffic to begin before stepping down on the street and crossing. This will synchronize your movement with the WALK signal. Do not venture to cross during the middle of a parallel flow of traffic.
Before crossing, do the following: turn your head and direct the best part of your vision first to the left, then to the right, and finally behind you towards car drivers who intend to make a turn. Even if you cannot see the car very clearly, you can tell it is there by its shape, color, reflection, or movement. When in doubt, ask for help.
When you have decided to cross, show confidence by walking at a steady pace. Any hesitation or pause can confuse drivers.
As a pedestrian you have many legally defined rights to protect you while travelling the streets. However, it is important to be aware of traffic and pedestrian guidelines. Your safety is very much your responsibility. So remember, STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN.
Adaptations In Your Home
Bedroom
Let's assess the comfort and safety of your bedroom. Have a seat on your bed and take a look around the room. Do you have difficulty locating important items on your bedside table? Have you bumped into your bedroom furniture on your way back from a midnight refrigerator raid? Whatever problem seems to trouble you, you are not alone. Here are a few suggestions, some of which may require the help of a sighted friend or relative.
Lighting and Electrical Safety
Problem: "I have difficulty adjusting from light to dark to light."
- Install a dimmer on your wall switch and on your bedside lamp so you can adjust to the light slowly.
- Give your eyes a little extra time to adjust to the lighting condition.
- Attach an on/off switch for your bedside lamp to your headboard or consider a "clapper".
- Keep nightlights on in your bedroom, bathroom, and hallway.
Problem: "I trip on wires and can't find electrical outlets."
- Attach wires and extensions cords securely along the wall at a convenient height.
- Anchor lamps to tables so they can't be knocked over.
- Use an automatic windup reel to keep wires completely wound up.
Problem: "I keep forgetting to turn off the lights and the heater."
- Use a heater with an automatic cut - off switch.
- Connect a timer system to your lamps and heaters. These can be set to turn on and off at specific times.
Things That Go Bump In The Night
Problem: "I hate bumping into doors or furniture and tripping over my own feet."
- Position as much furniture as possible along walls.
- Remove the footboard of your bed.
- Buy padded edging tape to cushion sharp edges on furniture.
- Attach door holders to keep open doors secured to the wall.
- Consider removing your bedroom door, possibly using a curtain instead.
- Remove any loose area rugs or other obstacles in your path.
- Avoid wearing socks or backless shoes on slippery floors. Always wear good slippers, with backs, that fit snugly on your feet.
- Put shoes away as soon as you take them off.
- Make a habit of closing closet and cupboard doors after using them.
Find What You Need, When You Need It
Problem: "I can't seem to find clothing and other items when I need them."
- The most important tip is ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE. Work out your own system to ensure that your clothes and other items are in places that you can remember.
- Always put items back in their proper places.
- Put dividers or small boxes in drawers to separate different types of small items.
- Make a large chart of the locations in which you have placed items in case you forget where they belong.
- Use different colored yarn or tape on drawers to help you identify items by a color coding system.
Problem: "I'm never quite sure if my clothes match."
- Have a friend whose taste you trust work with you to arrange clothes in your closet and dresser so that matching items are placed next to each other.
- Use tactile or large-print labels to mark items of similar colors and coordinating patterns.
- Decide on a combination of coordinating colors that appeal to you. When you need to replace any clothing, purchase items in these colors only!
Problem: "I can't find items on my bedside table."
- Use color contrast to your advantage. Put a light colored clock on a dark table, or vice versa. Make sure that the face has a large, contrasting numerals and you'll have as easy a time reading the clock as finding it!
- Use a bedside caddy for your tissues, glasses, etc. This will prevent items from falling on the floor where you could trip over them and will also help you find them.
- Make a habit of putting items away in the same place each night.
Adaptations In Your Home - General
Lighting
Good lighting will help improve the ability of most visually impaired individuals to locate objects. Try replacing all the light bulbs in your kitchen with bulbs of a higher wattage.
Lights on the underside of your kitchen cabinets can improve quite dramatically your ability to do simple tasks. Try 24 inch fluorescent tube lights that stick right onto all flat surfaces. They are inexpensive and are available at most hardware stores.
To enhance light in a room, paint it a light color, and/or increase the number of light fixtures and the total wattage in the room. To reduce glare, simply make use of darker colors and/or patterned wallpaper.
Dark colors absorb light. Use them for surfaces under windows or for those that glare.
Organization
Be organized! Organize food on shelves in some kind of logical order and keep that system working.
Make labels for cans and packages of food by printing the name of the food in black ink on a large white index card and attaching it to the item with a rubber band.
Place utensils in several separate boxes in your drawers to eliminate confusion and reduce chances of cutting yourself.
Turn on the oven light whenever you turn a burner on. It will serve as a reminder that the burner is going. Just remember to turn the light off when you turn the burner off!
Adaptations In Your Home - Kitchen
Many partially sighted people find the kitchen a difficult and possibly hazardous room. Take a few minutes to glance around your kitchen. From the doorway, are you able to locate the chairs and the table easily? Does the floor glare and cause you visual discomfort? When you fill the plate and set it on the table, can you see the plate easily? Can you locate your food easily? Is it difficult to fill a container with liquid? Is it easy to prepare a meal in this environment?
For partially sighted people, it is often difficult to find the ingredients and cooking tools. In addition, sharp knives, breakable glass, and hot stoves can be hazardous. Here are some inexpensive, practical solutions to help you get started on making your kitchen a safer and easier place to work.
Lighting and Color Contrast
Color contrast and lighting are as important in the kitchen as they are in any other room. Good lighting and reduced glare will help you use your remaining vision for kitchen tasks. High contrast in the colors you choose for the tools and décor in your kitchen will make it easier to find the things you need. Any time you place a dark object against a light background or vise versa, it will be much easier for you to locate the object. Just as black letters on a white background are easier to see than colored letters on a pastel background, dark food is easier to locate when placed on a white plate or vise versa.
Contrasting the color of the cupboard doors to the handles, so the handles are easier to find, may make cupboards easier to open. If more light is needed, consider removing the doors, installing a cupboard light or painting the inside of the cupboards a light color.
Paint your kitchen chairs and table in colors that contrast with your floor to help you locate the furniture with ease.
If you are unable to change the color of your table and chairs to contrast with the color of the floor, use a table cloth, dishtowels or napkins draped over the backs of the chairs to contrast with the floor color.
Use a table cloth that contrasts with the color of the dishes.
As with food, when serving dark colored liquids, use light colored containers and vise versa.
Attach two squares of paper, one light and one dark to your kitchen wall. When pouring liquid into a clear container, hold the container up against the square of paper that provides a contrasting background to the liquid. This will help you locate the proper level of liquid.
Organizing
The key to locating items is organization. Grouping things into categories and sorting them systematically makes finding them easier. For example, on your shelves, put all cans of fruit on the left, cans of vegetables on the right, and cans of fish in the center. Or categorize by shelves. In cupboards, keep the things most often used on the shelves that are the easiest for you to get to. Use dividers in cupboards and drawers to separate items. The same organizational ideas work in the refrigerator. Organize your refrigerated food by shelves, drawers, or by left and right. Pots and pans can be identified by location or by different color striped tape on the handles. Whatever system you select, the key to its success is to BE CONSISTENT.
Finding Things in Your Kitchen
Use all your senses to help you identify things in the kitchen. Weight, shape, sound, smell, and size can all help. For example, a box of cereal and a box of detergent may be the same size and shape. The detergent is much heavier, has a different odor, and has a different sound if you shake the two boxes. A consistent labeling system will also help you find things.
Labeling in the Kitchen
Many items used in the kitchen are labeled in a way that is difficult for partially sighted people to read. It may be necessary to re-label the things you bring home from the market so they are easier to find. Following are a few systems our patients find useful.
Blank stick-on labels are available in stationary stores. You can write the name of the product on the label in large, bold letters. Stick the labels on cans, bottles, boxes, plastic bags, freezer containers - just about anything. Labels should be durable, reusable (or inexpensive) and kept to as few as possible. With such a labeling system, labels can be easier to read especially using a visual aid.
Rubber bands can be used on cans. For example, vegetables have one rubber band around the can, fruits have two. You can develop your own rubber band code that is easy for you to remember.
Contrasting pieces of tape on the top of cans or frozen vegetable packages can be used. For example, yellow on corn, green on peas, red on beets.
Hi Marks is a fluorescent gel that, when dry, leaves a bright orange raised mark. It can be used to underline the identifying word on labels. A partially sighted person can then use visual aids to read only the most important information. It can also be handy for marking commonly used settings on toasters, stoves and ovens, microwaves, radios, blenders, irons, measuring cups, and other household items.
Learn to differentiate food items by:
- packaging (size, shape and feel)
- smell (spices)
- sound (a tin of flour sounds different than a tin of sugar when shaken)
The key to identifying and labeling kitchen items is to use a system that works for you, to be consistent, and to always return an item to the same spot.
Food Preparation
- Household appliance dials can be marked with dots of "Hi Marks", glue, nail polish or small bits of colored tape. Only mark essential numbers to avoid confusion.
- Use measuring cups in graduated sizes rather than one cup with marked divisions. Or mark common divisions in permanent, bold ink.
- To open milk cartons, feel the top for creases which fold back to make the spout, to identify the proper side for opening.
- Keep flour and sugar in tins since it is easier to scoop than pour.
- When baking, put all the ingredients on a tray. After using each item, place it off the tray, to indicate which ingredients have been used.
- Measure and pour over a tray to make cleanup easy. It is easier to wash a tray than the counter.
- Place brightly colored tape around the end of pot handles to make them more visible.
- Write recipes in large print and cover with plastic so the recipe will not get stained. List quantity in the mixing directions for easy reference. The recipe can be hung on a cupboard door with a bright plastic clip for easy close viewing.
- Have large print recipes for mixes such as cake and gravy mixes which are used on a regular basis.
- Read recipes onto a tape and use a tape recorder to hear recipes. To keep tape recorder clean, cover it or place it out of the cooking area.
- When peeling vegetables, hold them under cold running water from time to time. When vegetables are wet, fingers will slide easily over the peeled portions and stick slightly to the places where the peel remains.
- Cutting is easier if the color of the cutting board contrasts with the color of the food. When cutting vegetables, etc., cut in half lengthwise first and put flat side down so the vegetables will not roll as you finish cutting.
- Use your other senses: audible timers when cooking and listen for appliances that click off at the end of a cycle.
Equipment
- An egg ring can be made from a tuna fish can with both ends removed. Grease the ring, put it in the pan, and put the egg in the center. If you cover the ring with foil or a lid, the egg does not need to be turned over.
- An ice cream scoop is useful for making muffins or cupcakes to keep a uniform size and reduce spills.
- Long oven mitts which cover your arms to the elbow, will eliminate possible burns.
When is Food Ready?
If you have a visual loss, it helps to use all your senses to tell if your food is thoroughly cooked. For example, the texture of most foods changes when you cook it. Testing with a fork can tell you whether your bacon is crisp or your potatoes are soft.
Because the odor of food changes as it is cooked, your sense of smell can be very valuable. Some foods sound different as they cook. For example, you can hear the boiling water bubble and frying food sizzle.
Taste a small bit of the food to see if it is done, (but be sure to let it cool first so you don't burn your tongue).
Using a large print kitchen clock or timer will help you keep track of cooking time.
Use of your remaining vision, along with low vision aids, can be helpful in determining if food is ready.
Eating
- Think of your plate as a clock, always putting each type of food in the same spot on the plate, i.e. at the same "time". Meat is easiest to cut at "6 o'clock".
- Food is easiest to see when the color contrasts with the color of the plate. Have both dark and light plates so they can be used according to the color of the food being served.
- Contrast the color of the table cloth or place mat to the plate color.
- To put spread on bread or toast, put the spread in the center and work out towards the edges, or spread in up and down overlapping strips from one side to the other.
Safety in the Kitchen
Avoid Bumping into Doors
To avoid bumping into open cupboard doors, always close them as soon as you remove or replace an item. If possible, paint your cupboard door a brighter color to stand out from the wall. Choose a flat paint in the kitchen to help reduce glare. Or, try painting just the knobs or handles in a contrasting color.
Don't Get Burned
It's easy to burn yourself on hot appliances or foods. To avoid burns, use elbow length fireproof mitts with non-slip surfaces.
When cooking, don't wear clothing with long drooping sleeves that could catch on fire. Keep away from electric burners after turning them off. They often stay hot for some time, even though they are not glowing.
Develop the habit of turning off the oven and stove before removing food.
Turning on the oven light whenever you turn a burner on can serve as a reminder that the burner is going. Just remember to turn the light off when you turn the burner off!!
To tell if a burner is on or off, or warm, hold your hand about twelve inches above a burner with the palm facing down.
Be sure to remove towels hanging on oven handles. This common practice is a safety hazard.
Let your nose warn you when something is burning
Consider a slow cooker
Contrast and Lighting Help
Pot and pan handles can be easier to spot on stoves or counters if the handles are striped with contrasting color plastic tape. Disposable aluminum foil burner bibs, available in most markets, can serve to add contrast to your stove. They also make cleanup easier since they catch overflows and spills.
Lightweight, inexpensive lighting fixtures that can be attached with tape or glue are ideal for dark areas in your kitchen such as the underside of your kitchen cabinets or inside cupboards.
Large Print Cookbooks
A variety of large print cookbooks are available. Check with your local library or book store.
In conclusion, any task in your kitchen can be made easier through:
- better lighting and reduced glare
- better contrast
- good organization, and
- a consistent labeling system.
If you make use of the suggestions in this article, you can make your kitchen a safer and enjoyable room to be in. Bon Appetit!
Adaptations In Your Home - Bathroom
The bathroom can be a dangerous place. It is easy to slip and fall here, and sometimes difficult to find needed items like soap, toothpaste and towels. Good lighting and color contrast can make your bathroom safer and simpler to use. Here are some helpful hints that we often recommend to our patients.
Avoiding Slips and Falls
The bathroom is a common place to slip and fall due to linoleum or tile floors which often become slippery when wet. Great care should be taken to avoid spilling water or soapy liquids like shampoo.
Using a bathmat with a non-skid backing will help prevent slips and keep the floor dry. Non-skid appliques or mats are also available for the shower or tub. Use of contrast can be very valuable to avoid bumping into things. Drape a contrasting color towel or bathmat over the edge of the tub to make it easier to see the edge.
Finding the Toilet Seat
A very common concern among partially sighted people is finding the toilet seat instead of bumping into it. If the toilet and seat are the same color as the floor and the walls, it may be difficult to find. You can replace your toilet seat with a seat that contrasts with the walls and floor. The same goal can also be accomplished by using a toilet seat cover in a contrasting color. Choose a toilet paper that also contrasts with your walls.
Don't Get into Hot Water
To avoid scalding yourself in the shower or tub, we suggest that you turn on the cold water first, then turn on the hot water. Once at the desired level, turn off the hot water first. To make sure that the water in the tub is at the right level, you can float a brightly colored toy in the water. (Remember those rubber duckies?) Another way is to put a contrasting colored stripe of tape or waterproof paint at your usual water level, then fill the tub to that height.
Where's the Soap or Towel?
Finding the soap and towel can be easier if you always keep them in the same place. Using a different colored bar of soap or towel may make them easier to find.
Try switching to liquid soap in a dispenser that can be kept on the counter or hung in the bath or shower.
Grooming
Specialized mirrors are available for combing hair, putting on makeup, or shaving. Wall mounted mirrors with extension arms can be pulled towards your face to give you a closer look. Magnifying mirrors work just as well. Illuminated mirrors are also helpful.
Did You Brush Your Teeth?
Contrast should be kept in mind when selecting from the wide range of colored toothbrushes and toothpastes. For example, if your counter is a light color, choose a toothbrush with a darker colored handle. If your toothbrush has white bristles, pick out a colored toothpaste. One of the simplest ways to make sure that toothpaste gets where you want it is to squeeze the paste onto your finger, then apply it to your brush or directly to your teeth.
In The Medicine Cabinet
When selecting or purchasing toiletries, try to buy items that are different in shape, size, and color.
It is also helpful to keep the medicine cabinet neat and organized by categories. For example, toiletries on the first shelf and medicines on the second shelf.
Try to always return an item to the same place on the shelf.
Label your pill bottles with letters large enough for you to read. Use a bold black pen. Abbreviations are often necessary.
In conclusion, the three things that will help make your bathroom safer are:
- good lighting
- good contrast, and
- good common sense.
Adaptations In The Home - Clothing
Identifying Clothing
- Hang color coordinated clothes on the same hanger.
- Distinguish a particular item with a safety pin. For example, the blue jacket has a safety pin inside the sleeve.
- Buy colored metal tags to color code clothing items.
- Use an ice cube tray for storage of small items such as jewelry. Store matched pairs of earrings together.
- Use dividers or small boxes in drawers to separate small items.
Laundry
- Count small items such as wash cloths, underwear, and socks before putting them in the washer so at the end, by counting again, you'll know if any dropped or got left in the machine.
- Pin socks together before putting them in the laundry. Alternatively, items which need to be kept together may be washed in a pillow case.
Ironing
- Practice with a cold iron first. With heated iron, start with easy items.
- Use a thick cord around the ironing board to section off one end for the iron to keep it separate from the item to be ironed.
- To find the iron, follow the cord up the handle of the iron.
Plugs
- Use a receptacle which color contrasts with the wall.
