Eyes on the Workplace

About 25 million Americans are 65 and older. That figure will double during the next 25 years. Over the next 15 years, the baby boom generation will swell the ranks of middle-aged workers. But the numbers tell only half the story. The gradual decline in visual functioning that usually accompanies aging often goes undetected or is deemed untreatable. Older people may have difficulty seeing at night, reading small print, distinguishing similar colors, or coping with glare from a desktop or video display terminal. This report is the summary of a Conference held to identify and describe major research findings related to changing visual capacities and the employment of older workers, to recommend steps that could be taken by businesses to encourage the continued productive employment of older workers, and to identify research topics that have yet to be explored that might bear on this subject.