She has almost perfect vision in one eye and 20/400 in other. Trying to help her regain ability to read, write, etc. She finds it very difficult to function with eyes so different. Better to cover up eye? Or is there another device that may help her?
Equinox
For me, covering the bad eye, especially while reading, would be the way to go. The bad eye still contributes vision for things like balance, but it interferes with close work. Not everyone can do that, but it's worth a try. Have her try it every day for a week or two, and she might be able to function better after a while.
If she wouldn't get insulted, joke about it. "Well, now you don't need to dust because you can't see the cobwebs!"
You may not be able to do much to fix things, but you can give her sympathy and love.
One easy cheap thing is, if she has trouble seeing which button to push on something like a microwave, those little, sticky-backed rubber bumpers that are usually used on cabinet doors are good for marking things. They come in square and round shapes so, you can designate for different thing like off or on. Works on the other appliances also. I also bought paint pens at the hobby shop and marked things and words big for her.
But the very best thing I did was I got her into a trial study at NIH, National Institute of Health, in Bethesda, MD. It is about an hour and a half drive for us, but everything is totally free. The only thing you pay is your time. We went to that for 7 years, she got great treatment and they had machines that can see stuff in the eye and it was one of maybe only 6 machines in the US. Plus, they are usually ahead of the game on treatments. She didn't get any worse and in fact, regained about 4 lines of sight for a while. But then the disease progressed and it wasn't helping any more. I now go down to be in a different study because my Macula at 66 is very good, so I'm in the control group. I figure I need to give back for all the years of free treatment Mother got, plus it might help others in the future.
I don't know where you live but if you go to http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ and put in your disease, it will show all the studies going on in the United states. You can narrow it down to your area. Not only the government does these studies, universities and private companies also do them. I would only put one caveat out there. I didn't want my mother in a masked study where some got maybe a placebo because AMD is a progressive disease. I couldn't take the chance she get the placebo and the disease got worse. There was one at Hopkins at the time that was like that which is why we didn't participate there.
Don't know if you'll find any, but it's worth a shot. Good luck.
Low vision dr specializes in the people with very low vision. I guess you have to ask many questions and figure out what works best.
Take care
Equinox
I also recommend your mother try "palming". To do palming, she would first rub the palms of her hands together, to generate a little warmth. Then she would lightly place the palms of her hands (fingers together) over her eyes. It's all right if she uses a surface, like a table, or pillows to prop up her elbows while palming. If she can build up to two minutes of palming, she will probably find it to be relaxing to her eyes. And it's okay to build up to even longer times!
And of course there are eye exercises: moving the eyes in clockwise circles, counterclockwise circles, up and down, side to side.
You are correct .
Actually my moms optomotrists recommended her to go to see a cataract specialist, but time lapsed and . By the time I figured out there was something different about her vision, not knowing about a cataract, when she went to a cataract specialist, the cataract specialist recommended she check with a glaucoma specialist. because of her delay, ignorance about not telling anybody, and waited to long . The pressure caused the low vision. it was a good thing it was checked and treated( surgery was necessary) otherwise she would have gone blind.
Equinox.