Making Life More Livable: Simple Adaptations for Living at Home After Vision Loss (Paperback)

This is the essential guide for adults experiencing vision loss and is an invaluable resource for their family and friends. Full of practical tips and illustrated by numerous photographs, this easy-to-use resource shows how people who are visually impaired can continue living independent, productive lives at home on their own. Useful general guidelines and room-by-room specifics provide simple and effective solutions for making homes accessible and everyday activities doable for individuals with visual impairments.

Macular Degeneration: The Complete Guide to Saving and Maximizing Your Sight

Learn about macular degeneration in easy-to-understand language from the expert, Dr. Lylas Mogk. A must-have resource for people who have macular degeneration, or may develop it, and their friends, family, and doctors.

Patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD)are hungry for information about this eye condition, which is the leading cause of legal blindness in people over age 60. This volume is a wonderful reference book for anyone dealing with AMD. Dr. Mogk not only provides valid medical information, but also dispenses useful tips for day-to-day living.

Dealing with Vision Loss

is an inspirational autobiography by Fred Olver, who has been blind since birth. It offers information and resources on social skills for children, coping with vision loss, making the decision to use a white cane or a dog guide, computer adaptations, large print, braille, adapted timepieces, and magnifiers. The book can serve as a training tool for individuals who work with adults and children who are blind, and is an excellent resource for adults and children with vision loss, parents, family members, friends, social workers, teachers, nurses, and related professionals.

The author presents his unique perspective on blindness by blending his life experiences with his work in and out of the field of blindness. He was the first blind student to attend, and graduate from, Wayne Memorial High School in an era when most blind children attended special schools for the blind. He received his B.S. degree in Communications and Secondary Education and his M.A. in Blind Rehabilitation Teaching, both from Western Michigan University.

The large print edition is available at Author House

All other versions, including eBook, 2-track audiocassette or CD, or digital audio file, are available at the Dealing with Vision Loss web site.

The First Year: Age-Related Macular Degeneration

The First Year: Age-Related Macular Degeneration is an essential resource for people who want to be informed, active participants in the management of their condition. In 1995, Author Daniel L. Roberts, who has macular degeneration, retired from teaching to help others who also have AMD. He has established support networks for AMD patients and provided free presentations about vision impairment at schools, community organizations, and support groups across the country.

Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening (Hardcover)

Most of us see the layers of space, but author Stephen Kuusisto, who has been legally blind since birth, hears them. In these vivid essays, the poet (Only Bread, Only Light) and memoirist (Planet of the Blind) indulges and investigates the active listening he deploys to navigate the world around him. He is a keen observer. A crowd is not a crowd to him; instead it is a series of sound points, indicating space, pace, rhythm and mood. Through all these sounds and their meaning to him, Kuusisto reveals the nuance of the heard world, transporting the reader as he maps the aural landscape.

Planet of the Blind (Paperback)

"I stare at the world through smeared and broken windowpanes" poet and educator Stephen Kuusisto writes in the opening pages of this powerful, literary memoir. Weighing less than five pounds at birth, he was incubated with oxygen, as many premature infants were in the 1950s. His life was saved, but his retinas were severely scarred, leaving him legally blind. With his parents in denial, Kuusisto stumbled through his childhood in regular classrooms, derided by classmates for telescopic glasses and a right eye that continually hopped in its socket. He grew into an angry teen who struggled first with obesity and then with anorexia. Even into adulthood, he was unable to trust or reach out for help until an accident destroyed his residual vision and he finally admitted his need for assistance. In his late 30s he is able to accept his disability and trust a guide dog. Kuusisto's story is about the regeneration of the spirit. "I've taken the slow road to blindness", he writes toward the end of the book, "resisting it like a suspicious skater who fears the river." The author finds solace in both contemporary poetry and classical literature and his journey toward the "planet of the blind" is enlightening for its exploration of the physical and psychological struggles of people with disabilities.