Proceedings of: Workshop on Improving Building Design for Persons with Low Vision

Age and Gender

Okay. With all due respect to the youngsters in this room who have low vision, most people with low vision are old. The median age is 75 [- 76] years (slides 21 and 22). So half the people with low vision are older than that.

And here is the – this is just a histogram showing the distribution of number of patients in the sample who – by age who are presenting to these low-vision clinics (slide 22). And it’s heavily skewed to the older age – it’s a long tail that goes off to age 18 being the lowest age, and the median, as mentioned, being 76. The mean is 72 – standard deviation is about 16.

So for the most part, 80 percent of the people with low vision who are visiting low-vision clinics – and it agrees with the epidemiologic studies as well – are over age 65. Most people with low vision are women – two-thirds of them are women (slides 23 and 24). Why? Women live longer. See what you have to look forward to, ladies?

Okay. The age distribution of low vision among women is very similar to the age distribution among men – except there are just more women out there. The percentages – the distribution percentages are the same.