Austin County Eye Specializes in Senior Eye Care
Austin County Eye Associates focuses its medical practice on the eye care problems and needs of senior citizen in the West Houston communities. With convenient appointments, a comfortable office and the latest in state-of the art technology caregivers and patients trust and depend on Austin County Eye Associates as their eye care specialists.
Sealy, TX (PRWEB) October 9, 2008
Austin County Eye Associates focuses its medical practice on the eye care problems (http://www. austincountyeye. com) and needs of senior citizen in the West Houston communities. With convenient appointments, a comfortable office and the latest in state-of the art technology caregivers and patients trust and depend on Austin County Eye Associates as their eye care specialists (http://www. austincountyeye. com).
With the rising cost of health care, nursing home and assisted living facilities more and more baby-boomers are finding themselves moving in or caring for elderly parents or relatives. This often means making the health care choices for their loved one when it comes to physicians, hospitals and vision.
According to a USA TODAY/ ABC News /Gallup Poll at least 41% of baby-boomers have a living parent they are providing care for. The typical unpaid caregiver is a 46-year old woman who works outside of the home while taking care of a relative according to a study undertaken by AARP. This busy caregiver is usually saddled with all the medical decisions including choosing a doctors office for eye care and vision (http://www. austincountyeye. com) related problems.
Eye care plays an important role in the over-all health care plan for seniors and often has a direct impact on how long a person can stay at least somewhat self-sufficient and independent.
In a study by John Hopkins University produced to try to convince Medicare and insurance companies to put a stronger emphasis' on preventive eye care, the report looked at a 5 percent sampling (approximately 1.5 million people) of Medicare beneficiaries continuously enrolled from 1999 to 2003 and concluded that those with moderate, severe and total vision loss experienced increases in depression, injuries and the need for nursing home facilities.
"When eye sight fails the choices get tough," says Dr. Paul Beckwith of Austin County Eye Associates. " The good news is the sooner professional eye care (http://www. austincountyeye. com/eyecare. html) begins the better the chances for healthy vision (http://www. austincountyeye. com/healthy-vision-prevention. html) well into the later years."
Beckwith an ophthalmologist, who has owned several successful practices over the years in and around the Houston area, says often the first step is getting patients and caregivers to realize how diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer and cancer treatments affects vision.
For example glaucoma, which is referred to by Prevent Blindness America as "the sneak thief of sight", because people usually do not know notice any signs of the disease until they have already lost significant sight. More than 2.2 million Americans age 40 and older have the most common type of glaucoma called open angle glaucoma. At least half of those do not know they have it.
"The first step in prevention is regular exams at least once a year. Often from an eye exam we can detect if a patient has other health problems before they even know it or have experienced the symptoms." says Beckwith. "With consistent care we become familiar with a patient over a period of time; spotting the onset of problems early is the best prevention for avoiding serious problems down the road."
With a practice specializing in age related eye disease, Beckwith and his staff daily see patients with ailments such as macular degeneration (http://www. austincountyeye. com/macular-degeneration-quietly-robbing-vision. html), glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy (http://www. austincountyeye. com/diabetes-your-vision-symptoms-treatment-and-risk. html) and cataracts.
"When people are coming with their mother, father or relative, they want their loved one to be comfortable and get the best care possible and that is our goal as well. To give complete eye exams in a comfortable environment and educate our patients and their caregivers about the results and all the options available to them." Beckwith explained.
What kinds of options are available? Treatments sometimes are as simple as changes in diet, lifestyle choices, eye drops, vitamins or medication to undergoing laser surgery or cataract removal. New and advancing technologies are bringing new options in treatment of eye diseases all the time making choosing a eye care physician who stays abreast of those changes and new treatments all the more important.
At Austin County Eye, patients not only enjoy the benefit of a leading ophthalmologist when seeing Dr. Paul Beckwith but also associates Dr. Joel Cohen, an eye surgeon and specialist (http://www. austincountyeye. com) in eye disease, Dr. Rex Hawkins and Dr. Burt Ginsburg both Retina Virtuous specialists, together these doctors round out a successful team of highly qualified eye care specialist who are dedicated to providing better vision.
When visiting Austin County Eye you'll find a professional tight knit friendly staff headed by administrator Paul Lee, together they manage the day-to-day activities of Beckwith's practice.
"We try to make our patients comfortable but most important to me is the time we take to listen to our patients. I myself was in the position of taking one of my children to a dentist office and completely frustrated when we began to ask questions and the doctor rushed out the door saying we would have to make another appointment to discuss our concerns. I don't want our patients here at Austin County Eye to ever have that kind of frustrating experience, " explains Lee.
Adjoining the medical office is On Site Optical, a full service optical shop with a complete line of frames and eyewear. Stocked with designer names such as Oakley, Marchon, and Safilo, On Site Optical offers a range of quality eyewear, prescription safety glasses and contact lenses (http://www. austincountyeye. com/onsiteoptical. html). The optical department headed by John Orlowsky, O. B.C., prides itself on taking the time with patients to get just the right fit, look and most importantly the right prescription.
"Everyone wants to look great but fit is also very important if you have to wear glasses everyday, so we like to take the time to help customers choose the right frames the first time," say Orlowsky.
Concerned about whether your insurance or vision plans is accepted? Austin County Eye has an extensive list of insurance, vision plans they accept as well as Medicare and AARP discounts. A selection of these are listed on their new website at www. austincountyeye. com but if you are concerned about whether your insurance is accepted call the office and the staff will be happy to help you.
So what does all these mean to the caregiver of loved one, its simple peace of mind. Quality eye care with highly trained specialist, comfortable office, convenient location and one less health care choice to have to make.
Austin County Eye Associate is located in Sealy, Texas, 25 minutes west of Houston on Interstate 10 and can be reached at 979-885-4600.
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