What is Macular Degeneration (AMD)?

Macular degeneration, if very advanced, may severely limit your vision to the point of you being able to only count fingers or see hand movements in your central vision. This level of vision loss is considered legal blindness, and certainly may have a severe impact on daily life, but macular degeneration will not lead to complete and total blindness. Your peripheral vision will typically be preserved, but will unfortunately not provide the same crisp clarity because the still-healthy retina outside of the central macula does not have nearly the same density of light-sensing cells. In other words, age-related macular degeneration may lead to severe visual impairment, but will not cause you to become completely blind.

Researchers are working vigorously to discover new treatments for dry macular degeneration, but there is currently no treatment to restore vision lost from the dry form of this disease. A very large study sponsored by the National Eye Institute (AREDS and AREDS2), determined that several minerals and anti-oxidants may prevent patients with an intermediate stage of dry macular degeneration from going on to develop advanced macular degeneration, both of the wet and the dry forms. These minerals and anti-oxidants can be purchased without a prescription as AREDS2 supplements which you will take by mouth every day. If you have macular degeneration, ask your doctor if he or she thinks you might benefit from taking these AREDS2-vitamin supplements.

While we do not currently have great treatment options for dry macular degeneration, we have excellent options for the wet-form of the disease. Remember that the main characteristic of wet macular degeneration is the abnormal blood vessel growing from beneath the retina and leaking fluid which then damages the light-sensing cells of the retina. We fortunately have several options to help control the abnormal blood vessel growth and bleeding in wet macular degeneration. These medications are given directly into the eye by your ophthalmologist, and may be needed as frequently as every month to control the disease.

Both genetic and environmental factors have been found to be associated with the disease, but macular degeneration does not have a clear and well-established inheritance pattern, like many other diseases. It is estimated, however, that approximately 15 to 20 percent of individuals with age-related macular degeneration have at least one first-degree relative such as a sibling or parent, with the disease.

Several risk-factors have been linked to macular degeneration and should be avoided, including smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, and diets high in fat, cholesterol. A diet rich in green, leafy vegetables and anti-oxidants may lower risk of the disease. And as was mentioned previously, the AREDS2 trial found that certain minerals and anti-oxidants may prevent the progression to advanced macular degeneration.

Individuals with advanced macular degeneration may have significant difficulty with normal tasks such as reading, paying bills, using a telephone, and other daily activities. Inasmuch as the central vision may be severely diminished, many options exist to help increase the projection of images from being focused on just the damaged area of the macula to being projected onto the areas of the retina that remain healthy and unaffected by the disease. This can be done via handheld magnifiers, digital magnification devices, phones with larger buttons, and various other features available on a smartphone or computer. Talk with your doctor if he/she might know of a low-vision specialist who may assist you with obtaining magnification devices and teaching you about the various accessibility features now available on your electronic devices.