Does dementia affect the eyesight?

My Mom's been treated for about 5 years for something called Retinal Occlusions, when she started hallucinating I just thought it was that but the Retinal Specialist said her eye condition doesn't cause hallucinations. I can't help but think this is all related.

Good idea to try out a range of exercises, subtly so that she doesn't know you're checking and get performance nerves. It could be brain, but that could be vision, concentration, decoding… crumbs, it could be anything. Or, I suppose, she might even just be panicking? My mother "couldn't see" to her left following one small stroke, and this went on for quite a while (not helped by the then cataract) - it was a 'sensory deficit' as far as I remember the term. 18 months later she's not as disabled by it as she was before, but she's still favouring her right. I don't know if anything could be done, but it might be a good idea to have any CT or MRI brain scan repeated and compare the results from last time? If only so you know where you stand.

If it's vascular dementia you're dealing with, it can affect any part of the brain so yes it could affect the eyesight. But so could lots of other things so it is worth investigating.

I'm not aware of that pattern, but I'm not surprised, either. The brain interprets all the data we take in -- from our hearing and finger tips and vision and taste buds and nose. With Lewy Body Dementia the sense of smell is usually lost, for example. And depth perception is often extremely screwed up. My husband could not figure out how to get into bed so that he would fit between the headboard and the foot. (He was a mechanical engineer.) So I don't suppose it is impossible for dementia to mess up other aspects of vision.

I'd next see the neurologist who treats her dementia.

I haven't. If her dementia is bad, she could just have confusion such that she is confusing "not seeing with not comprehending" if that makes sense. In other words, they lose ability to read long passages because they cAnt comprehend what they just read, same for tv shows.

Take her for a walk, see if she can read street signs, house numbers. Take her to McD and see if she can read the menu items. Then you can see if it is just confusion or if she really can't see.

Yes, she may have TIA's affecting the brain. See a good Neurologist.