Self-reported Functional and Psychosocial Outcomes of Blind Rehabilitation

Abstract

This study explored changes in the self-reported functional capacity and psychosocial adjustment of 40 persons who completed a comprehensive residential rehabilitation program for visually impaired veterans. The significant improvements in the subjects’ perceptions of their functional capacity and self-esteem from the pretest to the posttest were compared to the changes in the subjects’ scores on clinical assessments routinely administered at the rehabilitation center. In the area of orientation and mobility, there was considerable correlation between self-reported improvements and improvements noted in the clinical assessments after rehabilitation.

Optimism, Social Comparisons, and Coping with Vision Loss in Israel

“…In sum, vision loss is a stressful situation, and adjustment to it is a long, dynamic process (Horowitz & Reinhardt, 1998). The more successful the adaptation to vision loss, the higher a person's functional ability, self-esteem, and satisfaction with life and the lower a person's depressive symptoms (Elliott & Kuyk, 1994;Horowitz & Reinhardt, 1998). The study presented here investigated how people cope with vision loss and what psychological mechanisms and resources enable them to use coping strategies to adapt successfully to this impairment.…”

FLORA™: Phase I development of a functional vision assessment for prosthetic vision users

“…The third category addresses using vision for mobility (for example, independently cross residential streets by following the lines of a crosswalk; avoid obstacles while walking) and the fourth assesses ‘Daily living tasks’, with emphasis on the visual aspects of the tasks (for example, visually locate/identify things in the bathroom; sort light from dark laundry). Blindness is known to be socially isolating, so the fifth category was added to evaluate visual tasks having to do with social interaction (for example, visually detecting the presence of others in a room; determining the direction of movement of people walking by).…”

The use of Self-Reports and Parent Observations in Assessing Performance Outcomes for Teenagers who Received Vision Rehabilitation Services

“…Studies of rehabilitation service outcomes (Elliot & Kuyk, 1994;Farish & Wen, 1994;Horowitz & Reinhardt, 1998;Nieuwenhuijsen, Frey, & Crews, 1991;Ponchilla & Kaarlela, 1986) have reported small to significant gains, primarily using self-report measures. In their Functional Independence Measure for Blind Adults, Long and Crews (1995) added to selfreports a measure of frequency of task performance.…”