Indoor illuminance to provide elderly cataract people
with proper visual performance

Chanprapha Phuangsuwan¹, Mitsuo Ikeda²

¹Phuangsuwan@rmutt.ac.th , ²mitsuoikeda@rmutt.ac.th

Abstract

The objective of the study was to investigate how much illuminance should be increased in a dim space to recognize objects compared to young people by simulating elderly people by cataract experiencing goggles. An experimental room was composedof a subject room and a test room of which lighting were independently controlled. A test stimulus taken from 4 posters and 6 photographs of Thai food dishes was placed in the test room and a subject adjusted its illuminance so that he/she could see the test stimuli without difficulty and comfortably while wearing the goggles or not wearing. Five levels of illuminance were investigated for the subject room covering 0 to 1054 lx.

It was found that illuminance of about 6 times is needed with the goggles compared to the eyes without goggles. The result suggests that an aged-friendly environment can be achieved by increasing the illuminance for objects placed in dimly lighted space by 6 times to assure the same visual performance as young people.

Keyword: senile cataract, elderly people, visual performance, quality of life, aged-friendly
  environment, illumination, lighting