Besides using medical treatments, you can make adjustments in your home or diet to help care for eye diseases or conditions.
Studies show that to see clearly, the average 60-year-old person needs at least three times the amount of light as the average 20-year-old. To compensate for changes in aging pupils, use proper illumination. For example, you can increase the amount of ambient light throughout your home, use individual lights—or task lighting—for specific activities, or avoid glare, which can be disorienting, by using lamp shades to diffuse lighting instead of bare bulbs or clear shades .
For losses in up-close vision, use reading glasses, bifocals, trifocals, progressive lenses (no lines) or contact lenses, or shine additional light on close work materials to enhance your eyesight.
To help alleviate the effects of minor lens yellowing, use halogen or fluorescent bulbs specifically designed to improve color rendering; bulbs with a color-rendering index (CRI) above 80 may best help. In your home, use warm contrasting colors such as yellow, orange and red to help you know where things are and to make it easier to perform daily activities.
Studies show that a good diet may help protect the lens of the eye and reduce the risk of certain lens conditions that diminish sight. Vitamins A, C and E and minerals like copper and zinc are essential to eyesight. Anthocyanin-rich blueberries, grapes and goji berries have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that can help improve your vision.
DHA, a fatty acid found in coldwater fish such as wild salmon, sardines and mackerel, provides structural support to cell membranes to boost eye health.
While exercising your whole body can help improve eye health, you can also work on just your eyes. Simple exercises to help maintain optimal vision include placing warm palms against your eyes for five seconds, rolling your eyes clockwise 10 times and then counterclockwise 10 times, and focusing your eyes on an object such as a pen at arm’s length, then moving it closer and farther. Perform these exercises first thing in the morning, before bedtime or any time your eyes feel fatigued.