Hacker News Reader

Comment by morninglight | Hacker News Reader

We have seen people bounce back from early signs of dementia after cataract surgery.

Yes, this was my dad. He went from very healthy, active and social to suddenly aloof and reserved. People from his generation in India have a thing against regular medical checkups and only visit doctors when something is wrong. The visual degradation from his cataract was so gradual and severe but he failed to notice that. After I dragging him to a GP, he got his diagnosis in 5 minutes. He had a cataract surgery the same week and he was like 10 years younger instantaneously.

I'd bet older people who have trouble seeing are more likely to be depressed and depressed people score higher (more likely to be) on dementia tests.

I've seen tons of things like family and active social lives helping with the disease but I bet it's just negative emotion and depressive symptoms make it worse rather than those things make it better.

There has to be more to this, since blind and deaf people exist and function in society. There may be direct correlations here, but there are definitely more factors involved.

I wonder if it has to do with the timing of the loss, and whether the loss happens at the same time as other losses.

For instance, if you have an accident and become blind as a teenager, but are otherwise fine, 1) you still have a fair degree of neuroplasticity, but 2) things in your life are generally getting better, which can encourage you to think your current situation will improve too (i.e., you'll cope better, even if you never see again).

If you become blind in your later years while everything else is declining, it makes sense that your prospects for improvement would be much lower.

The implied correlation and statistics here feels suspicious. Can they also say “we have seen people bounce back from early signs of dementia after getting eyeglasses” ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com