Could Spectacles Reduce Suicide Risk?
July 15, 2008 by Alicia Sparks, Mental Health Notes
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Well, this is an interesting new take on suicide prevention.
According to Byron L. Lam, M.D. of Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami School of Medicine, and his colleagues, “improved treatments of visual impairment and factors causing poor health could potentially reduce suicide risk.”
This news comes to me via Science Daily article Visual Impairment May Be Associated With Higher Suicide Risk, but the findings came to Lam and colleagues after a study (supported by grants from the National Eye Institute and the National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health) that reviewed data from national health surveys taken between the years of 1986 and 1996 by 137,479 participants.
Of course, Lam and colleagues aren’t suggesting that eye glasses alone will help with suicide prevention, but that the treatment of vision problems and other factors causing poor health could help decrease suicide risk.
Good day to buy stock in Bausch & Lomb?
Image: morgueFile
The type of visual disabilities they are discussing in the article remain as impairments even after spectacles. a stronger pair of glasses do not fix these sort of problems. low vision rehabilitation specialists, along with counseling, allow people the best chance of independent fullfilling lives
@ Michael – Thanks for further explaining that. I’m not too familiar with visual disabilities – do you mean disabilities like legal blindness?