Unit 1 Qcf H&S

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What is sensory loss? Sensory loss takes place when a person’s sight or hearing becomes impaired. For some people who have been born with a hearing or sight impairment the term “loss” is inappropriate. However many people who have spent their lives hearing or seeing and will experience a sense of loss if these abilities are affected. Very few people are totally deaf or completely blind so design for sensory loss should be about supporting remaining ability as well as compensating by using other senses. What is sight loss? Sight can help us perceive the world through image, motion and colour. On this website the term sight loss is used to describe those who are ‘blind’ and can’t see at all as well as people who are ‘partially sighted’ and might be able to see something such as shadows or hazy colour. Sight loss can mean people move around and interact with the environment by using alternative strategies which design can support. Sight loss has numerous causes relating to, accident, age, disease and dementia. Further details Sight and ageing Although our eyes change when we get older, most people lose their sight due to an eye condition or disease. 1 Age-related changes include the need for more light as the cornea becomes more opaque. There can also be changes in colour perception, a yellowing of vision, and a tendency towards long sightedness as the lens becomes thicker, stiffer, denser and moves forward in the eye. 1 Figure 1 shows the main causes of visual impairment in the UK. These are refractive error (31.6%), AMD (36.2%), cataract (24.5%), glaucoma (7.9%) and diabetic eye disease (2.3%). Other conditions included vascular occlusions and myopic degeneration. 2 Figure 1. Causes of visual impairment Causes of visual impairment 2 Lead causes of sight loss with ageing The four most common conditions causing sight loss for

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