Low Vision Rehabilitation Consensus Project

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DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): Low vision is a state of chronic visual impairment that causes disability. Low vision rehabilitation consists of vision enhancing and adaptive devices; visual skills, adaptive skills, ADL, and mobility training; environmental modifications; and psychosocial counseling. Low vision rehabilitation service providers most likely differ in the extent of patient evaluation, intervention options available, estimates of rehabilitation potential, estimates of the costs of intervention and the value of outcomes, and criteria for successful outcomes. The proposed project has the aims of developing a model for rehabilitation potential that incorporates clinical decision-making, estimating the distributions of decision-making variables in the population of low vision rehabilitation service providers, developing methods of gathering clinical data and measuring outcomes in a future clinical study, and organizing collaborators for a future clinical study. The proposed research will use consensus methods, classic Delphi and nominal group, to develop a consensus among experts on model parameters, to sample the distribution of opinions and parameter estimates among experienced low vision rehabilitation service providers, and to develop a consensus on details of the research plan for the future collaborative study.