If you are unable to work because of being blind you may be able to make a TPD claim for a lump sum from the Total & Permanent Disablement insurance contained within your superannuation fund. There is no necessity for you to have been involved in an accident or to have suffered a work related injury to make a TPD claim. If you suffer from total and permanent disability as a result of blindness, you may be able to make a TPD claim in addition to receiving your super early as a result of your condition. Our solicitors can advise you in detail as to the requirements of a successful submission, they will prepare all relevant paperwork and will obtain full supporting documentation. Our lawyers will give you free advice on the likely success of your claim to a super fund, without further obligation. It costs nothing to use our free advice service.

Our TPD claim solicitors use a risk free no win no fee arrangement.

We have offices situated in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Darwin.

Blindness - TPD

Blindness is the loss of eyesight or vision to varying degrees. It is estimated that 161 million blind or visually impaired people in the world, which results in 2.6 percent of the world’s population. About 124 million have low vision and another 37 million are completely blind. The main causes of visual loss are cataracts which are untreated, refractive errors (being near sighted, far sighted or having astigmatism or a combination of the three). Glaucoma can cause visual disturbances as can age related macular degeneration. There can be blindness from diabetes, which causes microvascular disease and small haemorrhages in the retina. In the US about 598,000 individuals have met what’s known as the legal definition of blindness. More than half are over the age of sixty five.

Blindness can be physiological or neurological in nature. If it is physiological, the problem is usually with the eye itself. The problem with neurological blindness is within the brain or with the nerves leading to the eye, such as the optic nerve.

There are several scales to measure blindness. If a person is NLP, this means no light perception and complete blindness. Other people have legal blindness, in which they can see some things but are unable to drive or get around very well due to visual impairment. They still have some residual vision but it is not enough to really get around. Legal blindness in the US and in Europe is defined as uncorrectable vision of at least 20/200 or worse in the better eye. This means that a legally blind person would have to stand at twenty feet to see the same thing a sighted person can see at two hundred feet away from an object.

If you have a visual field of less than twenty degrees, even if the remainder of your vision is normal, you are considered legally blind. Only a small amount of light reaches the cornea and retina so that, rather than seeing 180 degrees of view, you only see twenty degrees of view. Sometimes, the vision you do have is poor as well.

Further definitions include that of low vision, with an acuity of less than 20/60 but better than 20/200. Blindness is represented by vision of 20/400 or worse or a visual field loss of less than 10 degrees. This is the latest definition of blindness as defined by the World Health Organization. Interestingly, some blind people still have the visual determination of the Circadian rhythm even though they cannot see anything at all.

Historically speaking, the first definition of blindness in the US was adopted by the American Medical Association, which labeled blindness as a loss of central visual acuity of the eye at 20/200 or worse even with corrective lenses. The visual acuity was listed as no wider than 20 degrees in the best eye. This is currently the degree of vision loss that qualifies a person to receive Supplemental Social Security income.

The major causes of blindness are cataracts at 48 percent, glaucoma at 12 percent, macular degeneration at 8.7 percent, corneal opacity at 5 percent, diabetic retinopathy at 5 percent and childhood blindness at 4 percent. More rare causes of blindness include trachoma at 3.6 percent and onchocerciasis at 1 percent. What this means is that, worldwide, the most common causes of blindness are completely reversible if the medical techniques were available in developing countries. Glaucoma is completely treatable and cataract surgery is simple with the right techniques and doctors to do the procedures. Some kinds of blindness have been corrected in third world countries, such as that which is caused by leprosy and trachoma. Xerophthalmia is a blindness common in third world countries that has dropped dramatically through public health education. Even so 250,000 children go blind from this disease every year.

Treatment of blindness depends on treating the underlying disease that is causing the blindness. For example, diabetic retinopathy can be treated by managing the diabetes well and using laser to stop tiny areas of bleeding within the retina.

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