Looking at the statistics for Blindness can cause blindness.
I am pretty sure that is one of the statistics... I can't prove it, but after reading so much on blindness, I can't see.
The numbers are staggering even in 2014, when you would think things like cancer and blindness would have been cured, up pops something like ALS challenges and Ebola scares and you realize that even with our vast scientific community, with vast resources, we can't even actually cure the common cold.
I do know this topic isn't the most glamorous or the most catchy of the blogs you can choose from, and maybe it won't even be one of those subjects that ever affects you... but... you more than likely will know someone who has vision problems.
Reading the stats, I was amazed at the demographics. There has to be some correlation to the numbers and the locals. California leads the nation in blindness with over 700,000 reported cases of visual impairment. A close second is Texas and 600,000 reported cases, Florida is last with over400,000 cases{1}The number of cases of blindness has jumped since 2000-2010 . Cases at the turn of the millennium were936,000 to 1,288,000 people who were blind. That is huge. This jump is likely because of the aging population and the statistics on that are alarming, but what is even more alarming are the projections of the overall projected estimate of blindness in 2030 being 2,169,625 and the total projected estimates in 2050 being 4,113,472.{2}
When you break down the numbers by age and race, Whites make up the largest blind population, Blacks follow at a much lower rate and Hispanics at an even lower rate, other non-white ethnicity are miniscule.
When the numbers are broken down even further into male/female and into the category of race, then older White Females are the highest at risk group, Of course, economics plays a huge role in blindness as do health issues.The next few days I will go a bit deeper into the statistics, but really, what does it all mean to the average person? How do these facts fit into our day to day life? Is there any need to look into these statistics or are they just that... statistics that won't ever effect us?
I can answer that with a long and boring discussion on more statistics, but the fact is: You have eyes, you need them, they need to be healthy, there is a great possibility that you or someone you know needs visual correction. Eye health is important.It is all too often that we skip over the information like this and figure that it won't happen to us, or to family, but blindness can strike when you least expect it. I have a nephew that had an eye injury, he was pretty young, maybe 11 or 12. A tiny piece of metal shaving, not even a shaving but a speck flew into his eye, lodging in the lens. They couldn't remove the object, it eventually, after a couple of years, formed a cataract and his vision was diminished so much that they took out the lens...The doctor didn't replace the lens since the eye was still growing, so my nephew was blind in that eye. Try holding a thick piece of clear plastic over one eye and you might get the effect of having no vision. It is hard to walk around, to balance. It is difficult to do tasks that require vision, it's hard just to watch TV.
I suppose what I want to convey is that there is so much at stake when we are living our daily lives. Eye protection is of the utmost importance, yet very few of us actually take the time to use protection, even me... I am lazy. I try to think, ..."oh, it's ok, I'm just going to knock this nail in... " but that is exactly how my nephew got the little, tiny, speck sized piece of metal in his eye...
Tomorrow, the subject will be a little lighter, yet a bit more frightening. I'm going to work. I'll take you into my world of making a living. I hope you will bear with me. I won't give you quite so many numbers and will give you more pictures. Come back and join me, and have a cup of coffee with me on my coffee break.
1. National Eye Institute-National Eye Institute (NEI) http://www.nei.nih.gov
2. American Foundation for the Blind- statistics-235# demographics
3. Advance Data From Vital and Health Statistics; No. 125 (9/19 ...www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad125.pdf
