If you have suffered from vision loss, you may find it impossible to work and earn a living. Sometimes, if vision loss is severe, it will affect your ability to perform routine daily activities as well as work.
If you are partially, legally, or totally blind, you may qualify for Social Security Disability benefits administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA). If your vision is so bad that it makes it impossible to work, you may be able to have a claim for disability benefits approved.
How Vision Loss Can Affect Your Physical Capacity For Work
If you have vision loss, it can affect your physical capabilities to perform work duties. As an example, if you work construction and you have suffered vision loss, it is too risky to try to work on a job site and climb when your vision isn’t up to par. If your job requires driving, or if you must have excellent vision to read gauges and to mix chemicals, then it is no longer safe to perform your job because of your vision loss.
It may make it impossible to read and perform any written tasks, so you cannot perform sedentary duties. While you may be able to learn Braille, that may not make most jobs attainable and doable. Because of the vision loss making work duties so limited, you will most likely find that you can no longer physically handle any kind of work or perform any kind of job for a living.
How Vision Loss Can Affect Your Mental Capacity For Work
When you suffer severe vision loss, it can also affect you mentally. You will suffer from anxiety, depression, and mental anguish. These can all affect your ability to concentrate, remember, and focus. You may not be able to perform sedentary work because of the lack of vision and your inability to concentrate and stay focused. The depression and mental anguish may require treatment with medication that can cause additional side effects and symptoms, such as drowsiness and dizziness.
Vision Loss and Applying For Social Security Disability
If you are no longer able to work because of vision loss, you should consider applying for Social Security Disability benefits. To meet the medical criteria for vision loss, you must meet the criteria of one of the three listings for vision loss in the Blue Book. The loss of central visual acuity, Listing 2.02, covers vision loss in your central field of vision and requires that you see no better than 20/200 in your best eye.
Listing 2.03 applies to contraction of the visual field in the better and allows for claimants to qualify if they have a shrinking field of vision. Listing 2.04 involves loss of visual efficiency or visual impairment and covers problems that lead to unfocused or blurry vision or total blindness.
Complete the Free Case Evaluation form to have your claim details reviewed by an attorney in your area who handles disability cases. A lawyer will be able to help you better understand what medical criteria is needed to meet the listing. Then, you and your attorney can gather the correct medical evidence needed to help support your claim.
