I’ve suffered with poor vision for most of my adult life. Sometimes at intersections, I have to actually get out of the car and feel the letter ridges on a road sign to confirm my location. So when I ran into a staff member/friend outside a long-term care facility and noticed she was now wearing glasses, I felt bad to think she had been struck by the same scourge.
“Oh, do you have to wear those now?” I asked with great empathy and pity. “They look great, but I’m sorry.”
“No, they’re just blue-blockers,” she flippantly replied. And I realized I’d been fooled yet again, bamboozled if you will, by somebody pretending to have bad eyesight.
Now, I realize these glasses are all the rage, as they’re touted to reduce eye strain and limit retinal damage allegedly caused by the blue light from computer screens. But it appears there’s not much evidence to support that they actually work. She might as well be smearing Ivermectin on her corneas.
But beyond that, it raises important and troubling questions about my friend. Besides wearing these new placebo glasses, does she also hobble uninjured around the facility on crutches with a cast on her leg because she heard the plaster helps maintain youthful skin? Does she lug an oxygen tank wherever she goes because she just likes the fresh air? Doesn’t she feel at least a little bad soaking in all the undeserved pity she’s undoubtedly provoking from residents and coworkers?
Maybe I’m just bitter that I’ve spent a lifetime with glasses constantly slipping off my face, but it seems like people in blue-blockers are being needlessly insensitive toward those of us who have to wear the real ones all the time. So if your facility job requires extensive computer use and you believe these questionable devices actually work, maybe we can figure out some sort of less hurtful compromise.
How about considering your blue-blockers a computer accessory, like your mouse and keyboard, and only using them when you’re actually staring at the screen? If it’s too difficult to remember to take them off when you step away, maybe attach them to the monitor with a little chain, like one of those bank pens.
But if that doesn’t work, I’ll just do as The Who prescribed, and pray I don’t get fooled again.
Things I Think is written by Gary Tetz, a two-time national Silver Medalist and three-time regional Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Association of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) awards program, as well as an Award of Excellence honoree in the recent APEX 2020 Awards. He’s been amusing, inspiring, informing and sometimes befuddling long-term care readers worldwide since the end of a previous century. He is a writer and video producer for Consonus Healthcare Services in Portland, OR.
The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.
