Age related changes in vision and its implications for medication labeling

As life expectancy increases due to better health care and improved nutrition, the number and proportion of older citizens of the world is increasing. As early as age 45 the visual focusing ability at close range (farsightedness) starts to decline, and virtually everyone suffers some sort of loss of visual acuity by age 65 due to the normal aging process. This process of vision refractive errors, as well as other types of age related (and not age related) visual problems, have important implications for all of us and our quality of life. We live in a visually oriented society. Even with corrective eyeglasses issues remain. This presents obligations for us as professional communicators to examine the issue, conduct research and develop solutions that will facilitate "successful aging" in spite of a decline in visual acuity. This presentation focuses on a discussion of the scope of the problem and its implications for us as print and visual media professionals. In particular, the subject of message content and typography in the packaging of pharmaceuticals is explored and guidelines provided. One has only to scan the labels on prescription and non-prescription pharmaceuticals to recognize the importance of this issue to medication usability and error