Seniors with poor vision can still use touch screens
Should you get grandma a Kindle? Researchers say yes. They didn’t use the same wording, but a study confirms that seniors with age-related vision problems can still use touch screen devices.
The study was published in the October issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry.
Dr. Quentin Lenoble, PhD, of Université Lille Nord de France and colleagues designed an experiment to see how AMD affected performance on a simple touch screen task.
Twenty-four older adults with age-related macular disorder (AMD) were asked to explore scenes presented on a touch screen, and then to drag pictured objects to the corresponding scene–for example, matching a fish to the sea.
Their performance was compared with that of older adults without AMD, as well as young adults with normal vision. All three groups were highly accurate in matching the objects to the corresponding scene, with correct response rates of about 99%.
However, there were significant differences in the initial “exploration phase”–when participants were visually exploring the scenes presented on the touch screen. Average exploration time was about four seconds for AMD patients, compared to three seconds for older subjects with normal vision. For younger subjects, exploration time was significantly shorter: less than one second.
The younger participants also had shorter touch screen movement times. However, the two groups of older adults had similar movement speeds, whether or not they had AMD.
The authors note some limitations of their study–including the fact that it was performed using large, desktop-sized touch screen monitors. It’s unclear how AMD patients would be able to see and navigate the images presented on smaller screens, such as smartphones and global positioning systems.
AMD is the leading cause of vision loss in older adults, causing serious impairment in driving, reading, and other daily tasks. “The advent of digital displays and use of computer screens has opened up many new possibilities for reading activities and travel aids for AMD sufferers,” comments Anthony Adams, OD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Optometry and Vision Science.
