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Home Blog 5 Everyday Tasks That Are Frustratingly Inaccessible for Care Home Residents
Vision loss acts as a quiet barrier in many long-term care settings. Research indicates over half of long-term care residents are blind or have low-vision (RNIB), yet facilities are typically built around sighted residents’ needs.
August 10, 2025
This creates friction in daily life. Tasks as simple as choosing a meal or identifying a household item become impossible without help.
Each unmet need can chip away at the individual’s autonomy and dignity.
As an example, while sighted residents can read a menu or label at will, blind or low-vision residents often have to wait for a staff member to come and guide them through routine details – it can be a subtle but nevertheless constant erosion of independence.
Making care environments accessible, with tools or technology, can restore some of that self-direction and independence, while at the same time provide new services and reduce costs.
Here are 5 everyday tasks that are frustratingly inaccessible for residents who are blind or have low-vision and a comprehensive solution.
Menus are a particularly vivid example. For sighted residents, the day’s dining options are displayed visually – on a chalkboard or printed sheet. If you can’t see the text, that information is lost. Instead of casually choosing their meal, a blind resident often has to call over a staff member or peer and wait while it is read aloud. This dependence can be frustrating for residents who would rather participate more independently in even this small decision. It can also impact nutrition: without seeing the menu, residents may miss favorite foods or special diet options.
Importantly, in the United States, U.S. accessibility law requires “effective communication”. The ADA’s guidance explicitly notes that a business isn’t required to have Braille menus so long as it provides an alternative (like reading text aloud). However, when residents must repeatedly interrupt staff for menu choices, it slows service and diminishes choice.
“I would like to do something more useful. There are activities, but I can’t always join in because I can’t see.” – Resident
“There is an awful lot of things that I cannot do. I do try, I go down to the craft and I have a go but that I find very frustrating because I was so good at anything with my hands and now I can only feel and I don’t know if I’ve done it right, you know, but I do have a go.” – Resident
Care homes run on schedules: group activities, therapy sessions, exercise classes, visiting hours – all typically posted on boards or printed bulletins. When these schedules are only in visual form, blind residents miss out on the social and health opportunities around them. A notice on a whiteboard about a movie night or a flyer for a guest speaker is useless if you cannot read it.
Missing social events or appointments is more than an inconvenience; it can isolate residents. Studies show that vision loss in elders correlates with higher rates of depression and social isolation. When a resident can’t know what’s happening around them, they may withdraw or miss the chance to engage with peers. This not only hurts their quality of life but can also create extra work for staff, who must individually explain every schedule change or reminder.
Losing track of personal items is a daily frustration for residents with vision loss. Whether it’s a pair of glasses, a TV remote, or a favorite sweater, the inability to visually scan a room turns even the simplest task into a dependent one. A misplaced object can halt a routine entirely, delaying morning care, preventing a resident from watching TV, or disrupting rest.
Each time something is lost, residents must rely on staff, calling out or ringing a bell for assistance. These small, repeated requests — “Can you help me find my comb?” or “I think I dropped something, can you look?” — may seem minor in isolation, but across a day or week, they accumulate.
For staff already stretched thin, they interrupt more urgent responsibilities. For residents, they compound feelings of helplessness, embarrassment, and lost privacy. Over time, these interactions quietly erode a sense of autonomy and self-worth, reinforcing the message that even small tasks require outside help.
Documents and paperwork are another daily hurdle. Care homes still use printed consent forms, intake paperwork, and printed instructions for exercises or meals. These written materials are critical for informed decision-making, yet blind residents can’t read them. Having someone else read forms aloud is not only time-consuming but can feel disempowering. Residents lose a sense of control and privacy, and miscommunication becomes possible if the other person misreads something.
Getting ready and choosing what to wear in the morning is one of the most personal expressions we have in daily life. However, for people who are blind or have low-vision they’re reliant on assistance to choose clothes and get ready. Being able to identify clothing with conversational AI (image to audio) directly from their smartphone can help restore some independence and increase happiness.
Be My Eyes offers solutions that meet residents where they are, empowering them with tools to regain everyday independence. Through Service AI, residents can use their smartphone camera to interpret menus, printed schedules, and other printed materials and labels instantly using visual AI. This image-to-text functionality provides clear descriptions and allows follow-up questions, all without needing to call for staff assistance. Service AI typically resolves over 90% of requests without human involvement, offering a respectful, self-directed alternative for routine needs.
For more complex tasks, Service Connect enables direct visual support from trained agents through a one-way video, two-way audio call. This allows care home staff (or external providers if that is preferred) to visually assess and assist with tasks like identifying personal items or reviewing forms without having to be physically present.
And with Private Groups, family members can be added as trusted support contacts, so a daughter across the country can help her father read his mail or choose a shirt via the Be My Eyes app.
Together, these tools reduce staff burden, restore resident agency, engage family, and align with accessibility regulations.
Learn how accessible support transforms care. Download our free eBook or request a demo today to see Be My Eyes in action.
Resident quotes extracted from Older People’s Experiences of Sight Loss in Care Home – authored by the Centre for Health Research at the University of Brighton in partnership with Thomas Pocklington Trust.
