This article suggests that approaching vision loss from age-related macular degeneration from a sociocultural perspective, specifically considering perceptions of aging, blindness, disability, and generational viewpoints and norms, may be critical to understanding older adults’ responses to vision loss and visual rehabilitation.
BoltD. (2005). Castrating depictions of visual impairment: The literary backdrop to eugenics. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 99, 141–150.
3.
BoothW. (1992). The art of growing older.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4.
BrennanM. (2004). Spirituality and religiousness predict adaptation to vision loss in middle-aged and older adults. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 14, 193–214.
5.
CharltonJ. I. (2000). Nothing about us without us: Disability oppression and empowerment.Berkeley: University of California Press.
6.
CholdenL. S. (1954). Some psychiatric problems in the rehabilitation of the blind. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 18, 107–112.
7.
DahlbergA. (2004, April 1). On being young and visually impaired in Sweden.Enskede, Sweden: Riksorganisationen Unga Synskadade [Swedish Association of Visually Impaired Youth]. Retrieved, April 1, 2004, from http://www.ungasyn.se/english/index.html
8.
DavisL. J. (1995). Enforcing normalcy: Disability, deafness, and the body.New York: Verso.
9.
GoffmanE. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of a spoiled identity.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
10.
HorowitzA. (1997). The relationship between vision impairment and the assessment of disruptive behaviors among nursing home residents. The Gerontologist, 37, 620–628.
11.
KleegeG. (1999). Sight unseen.New Haven: Yale University Press.
12.
KleinR., KleinB. E., & LintonK. L. P. (1992). Prevalence of age-related maculopathy: The Beaver Dam Eye Study. Ophthalmology, 99, 933–943.
13.
LintonS. (1998). Claiming disability: Knowledge and identity.New York: New York University Press.
14.
LongmoreP., & UmanskyL. (Eds.). (2001). The new disability history: American perspectives.New York: New York University Press.
15.
MannheimK. (1952). The problem of generations. In KecskeméP. (Ed.), Essays on the sociology of knowledge by Karl Mannheim (pp. 98–110). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
16.
MattinglyC. (1998). Healing dramas and clinical plots: The narrative structure of experience.Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
17.
MichalkoR. (1998). The mystery of the eye and the shadow of blindness.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
18.
MilianM., & ErinJ. (2001). Diversity and visual impairment: The influence of race, gender, religion, and ethnicity on the individual.New York: AFB Press.
19.
MitchellD. T., & SnyderS. L. (1997). The body and physical difference: Discourses of disability.Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
20.
NeugartenB. L. (1996). The meanings of age.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
21.
PriestlyM. (2003). Disability: A life course approach.Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
22.
ScottJ. (2002). Is it a different world to when you were growing up? Generational effects on social representations and child-rearing values. British Journal of Sociology, 51(2), 355–376.
23.
ShapiroJ. P. (1994). No pity: People with disabilities forging a new civil rights movement.New York: Three Rivers Press.
24.
TolmanJ. R., HillD., KleinschmidtJ. J., & GreggC. H. (2005). Psychosocial adaptation to visual impairment and its relationship to depressive affect in older adults with age-related macular degeneration. The Gerontologist, 45, 747–753.
25.
WahlH.-W., BeckerS., BurmediD., & SchillingO. (2004). The role of primary and secondary control in adaptation to age-related vision loss: A study of older adults with macular degeneration. Psychology of Aging, 19, 235–239.
