Introduction:
Vision impairment is of growing concern. It is estimated that about 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide, including 39 million which are blind (1). Unlike refractive errors caused by diseases of the cornea or lens, which can be corrected by optic means or surgery, diseases affecting the visual nervous system (retina, optic nerve, brain) are assumed to be irreversible. The visionVision loss, especially if isit is irreversible, has often has serious consequences in everyday life. It impacts every part of a person’s life. Those patients are faced with a series of difficulties such as recognizing faces, reading, orand mobility. It is associated with falls, reduced capacity to carry out everyday activities, the need for residential care, increased risk of car accidents, and increased mortality and it is one of the strongest risk factors for the functional status decline in community-living people (2-12). Poor prognosis typically has a severe emotional impact. If vision loss is considered to be irreversible and progressive, patients experience continuous mental stress due to worriesworry, anxiety, or fear, with secondary consequences such as depression and social isolation (2). Moreover, Kalina reported that blindness was feared more than any other physical impairment (13). We have to keep in mind that the burden from visual impairment will increase as its prevalence increases (expected to double in the next 30 years), due to the ageing population (14). All the consequences of vision loss will be increased in the future, and besides the physical effects, we must also think of the visually impaired persons’ mental health.
As far as we know this is the first review of literature that unites vision loss and mental disorders.