How Seniors Can Protect Their Eyes When Using Smart Phones

24-Hour Home Care in Hazlet, NJ: Seniors and Smart Phones
24-Hour Home Care in Hazlet, NJ: Seniors and Smart Phones

It’s no secret that the light from smart phones screens aren’t good for anyone’s eyes. That’s why most health experts say that limiting screen time and taking other steps are important to protect your eyes and your vision.  But for seniors it’s even more important that they take steps to minimize the impact of blue light from smart phone and tablet screens. Blue light can damage the eyes as well as upset the body’s natural sleep schedule.  

If your senior loved one is using a smart phone you should make sure that they take these steps to protect their eyes when using their phones. You can also have a 24-hour care provider help them make these changes so that they can minimize the impact of the phone on their vision: 

Change The Text Size 

It doesn’t matter if your senior loved one uses an Apple smartphone or an Android phone there are many hacks and upgrades that can be done to make smart phones more accessible for seniors and easier on their eyes. One of the first things that you should do, or have a 24-hour care provider do, is go into the phone settings and change the text size. You can set the text to a preset size or customize it so that your senior loved one can easily it. You should only have to change this setting once.  

Enable Voice Commands 

Voice commands can be very helpful for seniors. Make sure that voice commands are authorized and help your senior loved one set up the phone at the prompt so that it will recognize their voice. Then all your senior loved one will have to do is tell the phone to open an app, call someone, or do other commands. Your senior loved one will even be able to tell the phone to call for help if they fall or can’t reach the phone for some reason.  

Just like you can enlarge the text to make it easier to see you can enlarge the keyboard to make it easier for them to see the letters and type. It’s a good idea to make sure that the contrast on the phone is set correctly too so that they can see each individual character on the keyboard. Some seniors find that a stylus or digital pen can be helpful because they can use the point of the stylus to touch individual characters instead of trying to tap them with a finger.  

Set A Blue Light Timer 

Most phones allow you or a 24-hour care provider to set a “night” mode or a mode where the light on the phone changes to warm yellow instead of cool blue. This is much better for the eyes and allows your senior loved one to use the phone at night without disrupting their body’s sleep schedule. You can set a custom time for this feature to turn on and off, or you can leave it on all the time if you find that the blue light hurts your senior loved one’s eyes.  

If you or an aging loved one are considering 24-Hour Home Care in Hazlet, NJ, please contact the caring staff at Lares Home Care 888-492-3538 or 732-566-1112. 

Roy Kleinert