Macular Degeneration

Social Bookmarks: del.icio.us Digg it Furl Google ma.gnolia reddit Simpy Squidoo Yahoo

Macular degeneration (AMD or age related MD, AMRD) is a disease of the eye that can catestrophically effect vision primarily by growth of new blood vessels in an area, such as the macula, where they are not supposed to be.

The dry form is more common than the wet, with about 85-90 percent of AMD patients diagnosed with dry AMD. The wet form of the disease usually leads to more serious vision loss.
Approximately 10% of patients 66 to 74 years of age will have findings of macular degeneration. The prevalence increases to 30% in patients 75 to 85 years of age.
Macular degeneration by itself will not lead to total blindness. For that matter, only a very small number of people with visual impairment are totally blind. In almost all cases, some vision remains. Other complicating conditions may possibly lead to such an acute condition (severe stroke or trauma, untreated glaucoma, etc.), but few macular degeneration patients experience total visual loss.The area of the macula comprises about 5% of the retina and is responsible for about 35% of the visual field. The remaining 65% (the peripheral field) remains unaffected by the disease.
VERY IMPORTANT: Report any irregularity to your eye doctor immediately.

Tags: , ,

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 am and is filed under Eye Conditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Responses to “Macular Degeneration”

  1. Nigel Houghton Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 10:50 am

    Useful, but it wasn’t clear whether the test has to be done with glasses on or off.

  2. anthony robinson Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 11:26 am

    i found the article very informative.

  3. john Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 11:45 am

    very interesting i tried the test and all appears well. many thanks.

  4. janey Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    Thank you for the test. I shall go to the optician and have a new test because the lines are wavy in one eye.

  5. Peter Buller Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 3:08 pm

    What dot in the middle??
    pjb

  6. Peter Buller Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 3:09 pm

    I don’t see any dot there!
    pjb

  7. Kevin Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 6:34 pm

    Thanks for alerting us to look out for this serious problem. You do not say whether there is any effective treatment for wet or dry macular degeneration that will prevent its progression.

  8. Warren Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 pm

    I quote from your letter
    It is critical that the lenses are made in such a way that the “neutral” part of the lens is assimilated in the correct position relative to your line of site, and is highly dependent …..

    line of site???

  9. james lennon Says:
    April 24th, 2009 at 6:21 pm

    Hi Mark,
    my wife suffers from Stargharts Syndrome which as you probobly know is loss of central vision.She is now registered as blind but she has peripheral vision which is not unlike some forms of macular degeneration, I just wondered if you have come across this before and would appreciate your comments.
    Kind Regards,
    Jamrs Lennon.

  10. Mark Bowden Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 6:39 pm

    line of site…………….perhaps if you are camping ??

    Line of sight (so much for spell checkers, I need idiot checkers !)

Leave a Reply