The Sioux Falls VA Health Care System provides low vision eye care to all veterans. The Low Vision Clinic provides services to Veterans with functional vision loss, restricted visual fields and disorders secondary to traumatic brain injury.

The Sioux Falls VA Low Vision Clinic has been seeing Veterans, who are not only legally blind but also those with low vision or functional vision loss, since fall 2008. They care for Veterans who have a visual impairment that cannot be corrected with ordinary glasses, contact lenses, or surgery.

What is low vision? People with low vision have some usable vision, but the images they see may be distorted or blurry even when they are wearing their glasses. They may also have trouble reading, cooking, watching TV or doing hobbies they once enjoyed.

What causes low vision? Low vision may occur as a result of injury, the aging process or as a complication of disease. Some examples of common diagnoses are macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.

The Low Vision Clinic provides a comprehensive eye examination, daily living skills training, visual skills training and hands-on training with adaptive equipment. Types of adaptive equipment available through VA include CCTV’s (reading machine), specialized eye glasses, magnifiers, large-print calendars, talking watches, computer screen enlargement and much more.

Veterans do not need to be previously enrolled in the VA Health Care System to be eligible for low vision services. All honorably discharged Veterans with diagnosed low vision of 20/70 or less are eligible. For more information, call the Veterans Service Office at 605-487-7691.