Sensory Impairment
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines impairment as:
“Any temporary or permanent loss or abnormality of body structure or function, whether physiological or psychological. An impairment is a disturbance affecting functions that are essentially mental (memory, consciousness) or sensory, internal organs (heart, kidney), the head, the trunk or the limbs” www.who.int
When normal function of vision and hearing is affected by damage to the structure of the eyes of ears, this is called sensory impairment.
Hearing and Vision Loss
Dual sensory impairment (or dual sensory loss) refers to a combined vision and hearing impairment (or loss).
Proprioceptive and vestibular systems are also sensory systems. If these are impaired, reports may refer also to “sensory impairment”.
Sensory impairment may be also be used more generally. For example, to describe an impairment to other main senses such as touch (tactile), smell (olfactory), taste (gustatory).
