Care For Your Elder

Glaucoma is easily treated with eye drops or pills in the beginning stages and can also be treated surgically.  One of the most important things you can do for your elder is to take them to the eye doctor at least every year to pick up any signs of vision deterioration.  It is so much easier to treat a disease in the early stages rather than play catch up with a full blown vision problem.

Unlike some of the other types of eye conditions there are not any alternative treatments such as increasing a type of food or taking any herbal supplements.

If your elder has been diagnosed with glaucoma, there are a few tricks you can do to help with glaucoma.   

• Do not give your elder large quantities of any type of beverage.  You want them to sip beverages slowly and drink them over the course of the day.  This prevents an increase of eye pressure. 
• Keep your elder from bending over with their heads down such as certain yoga positions as this may increase the eye pressures. 
• Be sure your elder takes all their blood pressure medicine too.  This helps control the eye pressures.

Since there really isn’t much you can do to prevent glaucoma, let’s talk about the basic vitamins that encourage eye health.  The vitamin with the most impact on the eyes is Vitamin A.  A lack of Vitamin A can actually lead to a loss of vision or blindness.  In ancient Egypt if a person was suffering from night blindness (one of the early signs of Vitamin A deficiency) the “cure” was to eat liver.  Liver happens to be very high in Vitamin A. 

A lack of Vitamin A makes the cornea dry and damages the retina.  The recommended daily allowance for men over 19 years is 3,000 IU (900-1000 mcg/day) and for women 2,310 IU (700-800 mcg/day).

Foods high in Vitamin A or convert beta-carotene Vitamin A are:

Meats/Animal Products - Beef Liver, Chicken Liver, Meat, Kidney, Cod, Halibut, Whole Milk

Vegetables – Carrots, Spinach, Pumpkin, Sweet Potatoes, Winter Squashes, broccoli, and most dark green leafy veggies

Fruit – Cantaloupe, Pink Grapefruit (be careful with this one and check to see if it will interfere with medications), Apricots, Oranges

Remember that too much of good thing can also be bad.  Dosages of Vitamin A around 20-25,000 IU daily can cause headaches, hair loss, vomiting, brittle bones and skin turning a yellowish color.

Tags: eye glaucoma, glaucoma disease, glaucoma eye disease, glaucoma signs, signs of glaucoma