Blind vs Visually Impaired: What’s the Difference?

One is never sure how to refer to people with disabilities in fear of offending and hurting their feelings. While certain terminology might aid people in this direction, the terminology for particular disabilities such as visual disability isn’t that clear-cut. The terms like blind and visually impaired are just some of the terms people can use to describe or refer to people of this category. However, one thing that people might not know is that these terms aren’t synonymous and thus can’t be used interchangeably. They each have a different meaning and are used in certain situations.

What Is Blindness?

Blindness is defined as the state of not being able to see. This lack of vision comes from a genetic condition, injury, or a particular disease. This loss of sight can’t be corrected in any way, neither by surgical operations nor by glasses and contact glasses.

What Is Visual Impairment?

Visual impairment is an umbrella term that refers to all kinds of visual loss, regardless of whether they can see or can’t. In other words, the visual impairment term can be used to describe both the people who experienced a decrease in the ability to see to a certain degree (have a minimal vision or a degree of usable vision) and those that can’t see at all.

Types of Visual Impairment

Visual impairment is a blanket term for many eyesight conditions, and here we’re listing them.

Macular Degeneration

A severe vision impairment that is age-related. One experiences distorted vision, dimmed colour vision, and hallucinations.

Cataracts

The lens of the eyes get clouded, and it feels like you’re looking through a curtain.

Diabetic Retinopathy

The vision is impaired due to diabetes that might damage the small blood vessels. This causes blurred and distorted vision.

Glaucoma

The visual impairment caused by glaucoma brings difficulty adjusting to low light, blurred vision, and blindness without early correction.

Optical Atrophy

The damaged optic nerve causes optic atrophy and, as a condition, is untreatable.

Stargardt’s Disease

This is a condition that occurs in the 20s. The symptoms include vision loss, blurred vision, and a reduced ability to see colours.

Causes of Visual Impairment

One’s vision may get impaired due to multiple reasons. The leading causes of visual impairment in the globe are:

• Uncorrected refractive errors.
• Age-related macular degeneration.
• Diabetic retinopathy.
• Corneal opacity.
• Trachoma

How to Refer to Blind and Visually-Impaired People?

There are a few terms used to describe the level of visual impairment:

• Partially sighted
• Low vision
• Legally blind and
• Blind

However, when it comes to referring to people with visual disabilities, you should refrain from mentioning the disability and only mention if it’s relevant to the story or the conversation. It’s also acceptable for the terms blind and visually impaired to be used. According to the National Center on Disability and Journalism,  one should use the term blind only when the person has a complete loss of sight and legally blind when the person has almost complete vision loss. The latter should be used only if the person themselves use it; otherwise, you should stick to the terms low vision, visually impaired, and limited vision.

Derogatory terms to avoid

There are some words that one should remove from your vocabulary when it comes to communicating with limited-vision people.

Confined to a wheelchair or wheelchair-bound

Usually, this term carries out a connotation of restriction. In fact, it’s the opposite. This device enables visually-impaired people to move around.

 Afflicted with or suffering from

This term carries the assumption that a visually-impaired person is suffering or experiences a lower quality of life.

Who Does Visual Impairment Affect?

According to the World Health Organization, vision impairment affects at least 2.2 billion people around the world. One billion of them have a preventable vision impairment or one yet to be addressed. There is no specific age group that visual impairment can affect. However, people aged 65-67 years had a 3.8 higher risk of developing visual impairment.

Blind and visually impaired terms might have been used interchangeably, however, they don’t represent the same meaning. Each one is used to describe a certain sight impairment level one might be on. They sure are used in a similar context, but one has a broader meaning and the other a more narrow one. We hope that through this article, you understand which is which.

Products to aid the partially sighted or blind

If you are sight impaired or blind you will probably need to make a few changes to your home.  Take a look at some of our suggestions to aid an independent lifestyle

Guest post by Kelly Davidson.

Kelly Davidson is a content manager for the Laser Eye Surgery Hub. There, she works to provide people with the best information and resources on all types of eye surgeries, the costs of these surgeries, and the best clinics out there for people to undergo these procedures. Not only that, she finds joy in making sure people are getting answers to all of the questions they might have.