Because its Women's Month and because we are preparing for our tour of the Northwestern Labor and Delivery Center I have decided to tailor this blog post to a very interesting fact that I found out this week which raised a lot of questions in class. While reading an article on the top 10 key areas that cause large consequences for women, we found that #10 was "Women have a higher risk of becoming visually impaired than men". This prompted the question, why? I mean I get why certain areas of consequence are higher for women (like deaths while giving birth. I mean women give birth... I think that one is self-explanatory). But why are women more susceptible to having vision loss or impairment?
A little more research on this topic led me to an article by the Center for the Visually Impaired called, "Learn Why Women Are More Prone to Vision Loss Than Men" (link below). There are actually quite a few reasons why there is this increase in women. The first reason has to do with the fact that women tend to live longer than men. This puts their eyes at risk for developing age prone diseases such as cataracts and macular degeneration. Another reason for this increase correlates with the hormones that women have and the cycles their hormones go through in a lifetime. Because women get pregnant, birth children, and go through menopause, their bodies are constantly going through different hormone changes throughout their life. A lot of these hormone imbalances can cause dry eyes.One of the last reasons is that women are caretakers. If there is not enough means for everyone in the family to seek healthcare, usually the mother puts her own needs at risk for her children. In areas where healthcare is out of reach or unaffordable women struggle to get even their sick children taken care of let alone their own health needs.
I have a friend studying at the Illinois Optometry School in Chicago located on the south side of the city. According to her, you can tell a lot about a persons overall health just by looking at their eye health. In her clinic alone they diagnose and treat a lot of individuals from the south and west sides who are experiencing eye problems and don't have the means to regularly visit a primary optometrist. The Center for the Visually Impaired has even started a program to help women of all age, race, ethnicity, and culture to become more aware of their eye health. It's quippy name "See Jane See", comes from an older children series called "Fun with Dick and Jane".
The types of individuals I mentioned above are the same individuals that we are designing for in this semesters medical campus project. How can we take an issue that makes it on the top ten list of critical conditions for women, and at least help the individuals in Chicago? A lot of groups are looking toward a healthy lifestyle approach instead of just a diagnose and treat kind of approach which seems like the right way to start, but is there more that we can think of? How can we enact initiatives to get mothers and their children to these optometrist appointments? Is there ways that we can imitate a way for both the mothers and their children to have joint appointments? My team member and I are looking into mobile architecture and how we can seep healthcare into the neighborhood. Maybe this could be a step into helping reduce the number of eye related issues in women.
Link to The Center of the Visually Impaired Article: http://www.cviga.org/sightseeing/safe_sight_learn_why_women_are_more_prone_to_loss_/
Photo Credit: https://goo.gl/images/kco2zg
Comments