As the Vision Fades, the Indignities Grow

New York Times: By KATIE HAFNER

As baby boomers grope their way through middle age, they are encountering the daily indignities that accompany a downward slide in visual acuity: trying to read a road map in a car at night; cellphones designed for 20-year-old eyes; the minuscule letters on a bottle of aspirin; nutrition information squeezed onto a bag of peanuts.

And unlike their parents and grandparents, they are not shy about expressing their displeasure, in some cases, taking matters into their own hands or prompting some companies to pay attention. ...

By their early 40s, many people are noticing the first symptoms of presbyopia, or “old man’s eyes.” As the eye ages, it is less able to take in light. At the same time, the lens inside the eye loses its flexibility. The result is blurred vision. ...

Craig Roessler, 60, a school superintendent in Silverton, Ore., said he prefers not to have to worry about losing his reading glasses and has devised a loose strategy. In addition to one pair of prescription reading glasses that he carries to work, he keeps eight or so pairs of inexpensive glasses scattered throughout his daily surroundings: two in his car, one in his golf bag, one in his desk drawer at the office and several around the house. He has also noticed that at the clubhouse of his golf club, a pair of reading glasses is tied to the computer terminal. ... And when reading glasses are not enough, out come the magnifying glasses and flashlights. ...

But Dr. Lewis has no such solution for the washing instructions on clothing labels. “You need an electron microscope to read them,” he said. ...

“There are efforts afoot to shift into next-generation technology, to produce more readable information, but it certainly isn’t happening overnight,” said Ray Bullman, executive vice president of the National Council on Patient Information and Education, a nonprofit organization based in Bethesda, Md.

Small print is not a new problem, Professor Bigelow, 62, pointed out. “The shapes of the letters in fonts such as Times Roman all derive from a set of complaints lodged by 14th-century scholars who wanted to read late in life,” he said.