Wouldn’t the world be a cleaner place if we gave blind people brooms instead of canes?

Nick Thune

You will know that one of the key aims of this blog is to educate people on sight loss, disability and the impact these can have in people’s day to day lives. We all know someone with sight loss, and we all know, in our heart of hearts that at some point in our lives we’ll suffer with some form of sight loss. I thought my next post would therefore be aimed at answering some common questions people have about sight loss.

I suspect most of you will have wondered the answers to some of these questions at some point. So to avoid you wondering anymore;  I set out my views on some common questions   below.

1. What Do Blind People See?

First things first,  “blind” is a very broad term. There is a perception that being “blind” means, being totally blind i.e. not being able to see a thing. However “blind” includes people who are indeed totally blind, and those with severe sight loss like me.

To me, and this isn’t a medical description, I think of blindness being a lack of  useful sight that enables one to do day to day ordinary things and is incurable or untreatable. 

This means that many people with a wide range of sight impairments can fall within the broader definition of being blind. There is such a variety of severe sight loss conditions, that its really difficult to accurately describe what one blind person sees (or doesn’t see) vs another. 

What a blind person can see depends a great deal on how much vision they have.  This means that whilst someone totally blind can’t see a thing, someone with low vision may be able to see not only light, but colours and shapes  to some extent. Some people may only be able to tell the difference between light and dark (and nothing in between) whereas someone else may be able to see a wide spectrum of colours but  have blurred and hazy sight such that they can’t use their sight for day-to-day purposes. Others may have blind spots impairing their central vision or no peripheral vision causing them to have tunnel vision.

So in that classic lawyer way, I’ve started this post by  providing you with an answer that isn’t really an answer to your  question….is it any wonder that so many politicians begun as lawyers….

2. Why Don’t Glasses Work To Cure Blindness?

It is worth talking about how glasses work before answering this one.  Prescription eyewear (e.g. eyeglasses  or contact lenses) works by bending light as it enters your eye to allow it to focus perfectly on your retina (the complex cells at the back of your eyes containing all of the light detecting cells) for a clear viewing field.  Your pupils (the dark centre of your eye) dilate and contract to allow light into the retina. If your vision is 20/20 or better, this means that light is able to focus directly on the retina but if the lens of your eye forces light to focus before or after the retina you will suffer from common vision problems (e.g. short or long sightedness). Eyeglasses or other corrective lenses can be used to bend the light to land correctly on the retina and allow almost anyone to have a clear viewing field

So, the  glasses effectively help to correct defects in your eye lenses. A lot of sight loss conditions (including mine) are a result of poor retinal function, so if your retina isn’t functioning properly, it doesn’t really matter how the light bends or hits it as you won’t get any functional use from that in any event.  If you’re totally blind, I feel like I don’t really have to explain why glasses don’t work.

3. So why do lots of blind people wear sunglasses then?

My personal answer to this, in line with that 1990s cartoon (by today’s standards questionable) icon, Johnny Bravo,  is because they make you look super cool….also my eyes are sensitive to glare so they protect against that. 

Lots of  people assume blind people wear sunglasses to hide their eyes. This might be the case for some people but actually there  are a number of reasons why a blind person’s condition may necessitate them wearing sunglasses.

• Protection from UV: UV rays can affect your eyes, causing  a number of conditions (e.g. photokeratitis, which causes inflammation of the cornea) so blind people may wear a pair of shades for this purpose. 
  
• Reduces Negative Effects of Sight Loss:  Some  blind people’s conditions are particularly sensitive to bright light or glaring light. As you know, sunglasses can work to reduce any glare caused by light and thus reduce discomfort for people with these conditions.
  
• Protects Against Dust: It is difficult to shield your body from something that you can’t see, and this is what blind people face every day. If you are blind, your eyes get constantly affected by dust and foreign objects as you can’t see and get out of the way in time. For that reason, wearing sunglasses is crucial, especially when you are outside.

4. Do Blind People Have Better Hearing?

I don’t think  blind people have better ears  or hearing capacity than the average person. What I do think is the case, is that blind people, particularly those who are born blind or become blind at a young age, have a more  nuance and attuned hearing ability than others.

Think about it, if  you can’t use your sight to perceive the world, you’ll rely more on your other senses. So, for someone like me, who relies on his hearing, I am way more attuned to listening out for cars on the road, recognizing people’s foot steps and voices and generally listening out  for more things than the other. I don’t think my hearing ability is beyond the scope of any sighted person, and I think a sighted person could train themselves to develop the same hearing ability as me over time, but the key to enhancing ones hearing ability for blind people is necessity.

5. Do Blind People Dream?

Blind people can and do dream, though their dreams can be somewhat different from those of sighted people. The type of imagery a blind person has in their dreams can also vary, depending on when they lost their sight.

But having spoken to a few sight impaired friends and having done a bit of research on this,  I think people who are blind, from birth or otherwise, can still experience visual images in their dreams.

Blind people largely dream about the same things sighted people do. Consider some common types of dreams you have. Chances are they include a mix of strange things that don’t make a ton of sense, mundane things that happen in your daily life, or potentially embarrassing scenarios. This indicates that the dreams of blind people, like those of sighted people, could reflect things happening in their waking lives, such as concerns about or difficulties in getting from place to place.

So in answer to this question, yes we dream and yes we wake up with the same confusion many of us experience when waking up from a weird dream.

6. How Do Blind People Get Dressed?

This is quite a common question I get  asked, and probably one of the most frustrating just due to the sheer number of times it gets asked. Watch out for a future post on this  as I think it’s a valid question to ask. However, given how often I get asked this, I’m going to respond here with my perfunctory weary answer which is…. ….WITH CLOTHES….

7. How Do Guide Dogs Help Blind People?

Did you know that there are now  guide horses for blind people? I’m still holding out for when they start getting  guide pandas at which point you can be sure I’ll be at the  front of the queue for one.

Everybody knows that the training, intelligence and skill level of guide dogs are highly complex, and far superior to that which most domestically kept dogs can ever achieve, with the training of potential guide dog puppies beginning when the dogs are just a few weeks old.

A guide dog user and their guide dog are effectively a partnership that enable both to access this world in a safe way. Think of the guide dog as the blind person’s driver, and the guide dog user as the navigator (but hopefully more useful than a back-seat driver). 

Guide dogs help  a blind person in so many ways that it’d be a disservice to summarise it here. However, during their training, guide dogs are trained to do the following things to assist their users.

• Walk centrally along the pavement whilst avoiding obstacles on the route
• stop at kerbs and steps
• find doors, crossings and places which are visited regularly
• judge height and width so you do not bump your head or shoulder
• help keep you straight when crossing a road  

While a guide dog can do all of these things to help a blind person  it is still down to the individual need to give commands, provide encouragement and tell the dog which way to go.  

8. How Do Blind People Clean Up Their  Guide Dog’s Poop?

When you think how hard it can be for a sighted person (especially on my street, seemingly….)to know every time their dog does their business and find it effectively, it’s easy to understand why this may be a challenge for a blind person. 

Guide dogs are toilet trained from a young age very differently to other dogs. While they are taught the normal methods of asking to go out to the toilet and to hold it in until the right opportunity presents itself, their training goes further!

Guide dogs are trained to do their business on command, and are trained to respond to commands instructing them to wait before  they do their business so the blind person can work out where  they are, and ideally where their deposit will end up.

The stance that a dog takes on when going to the toilet varies, depending on whether they need to urinate or defecate. This can be judged by touch, by running a hand along the dog’s back. When squatting to pee, the back of the dog is flat, but when squatting to poop, the back will be slightly hunched. This lets the handler know whether or not they will be needing a pooh bag, and which direction the dog is facing to make their deposit! Male guide dogs are also specially trained to squat to pee rather than cocking their legs, in order to allow their handlers to tell by touch if the dog is going to the toilet, and what they are doing. Then, once the dog has done their business and got up, the handler, despite their blindness or poor vision, can simply pick up the poop in their bag just like any other dog owner.

*Disclaimer  – The thoughts on this post are mine. They are based off the life experiences, difficulties and challenges of a man having lived with, worked and experienced the world with a sight impairment who is lucky enough to use these for the betterment of disabled individuals and society in general. Other  individuals may have alternative  views to those of my own which will be just as valid as my own.