New business provides in-home consultations for the visually impaired

By Janie Nafsinger

Boom!, Feb 4, 2010

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The moment your ophthalmologist says, “There’s nothing more I can do to save your eyesight,” Low Vision Consultants can step in and help.

This new Portland-area business offers in-home consultations to people with low vision, providing tips, tools and resources that enable them to live independently after medical treatment options for vision loss have been exhausted.

The owners of Low Vision Consultants, Evelyn Maizels and Gloria Patrick, were longtime employees of the now-defunct Vision Northwest, a non-profit organization offering support services to people with low vision. After Vision Northwest closed last summer after 26 years of operation – the victim of shrinking revenues in a bad economy – Maizels and Patrick saw a major gap in services to people affected by vision loss.

Their new company is the only one they know of in the Portland area that provides consultations in the privacy of clients’ homes. During these visits, Maizels and Patrick work with clients to find solutions for their low-vision needs, recommend strategies to help with everyday activities and introduce a variety of low-vision adaptive aids.

They also explore the emotional side of vision loss, “which is very big,” Maizels says.

Maizels describes low vision as “anything that makes it difficult to do daily activities, when glasses no longer help.”

Though low vision occurs primarily in the elderly, all ages are affected. Its causes vary from macular degeneration (the most common cause among older adults) to birth defects, inherited diseases, injuries, diabetes, glaucoma and cataracts.

Low vision is not blindness, Maizels says – people with low vision still have eyesight that magnifiers, special lighting and other devices can enhance.

She and Patrick recognize that vision loss also is a family matter, so they encourage family members to participate in the consultations.

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