Eye&Vision – Age-related visual problems
- The process of aging is related to sight worsening and we often need vision support, such as glasses. Furthermore, with aging our sight is more often susceptible to situations such as stress and long-working sessions, whereas improves under holiday or low-work conditions.
- One of the most severe age-related visual problems is the macular degeneration. As the eye ages, progressive modifications take place in a number of areas and structures beneath the retinal macula, leading to the impairment of oxygen and nutrients supply. Furthermore, debris, which is normally metabolized and removed from the retinal epithelium, accumulates and forms deposits under the epithelium itself. The seriousness, irreversibility and frequency of this pathology are the leading causes of severe central vision loss in people over the age of 55.
- There are two types of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), with different clinical and pathological features.
- Exudative Macular Degeneration (wet AMD), also known as neo-vascular AMD. This degeneration is characterized by the formation of new blood vessels and accounts for about 10-20% of AMD cases.
- Atrophic macular degeneration (dry AMD), also known as non-vascular AMD. This is by far the most common form (accounting for 80-90% of AMD cases) and is associated with a high risk of progression towards the exudative form.
- Atrophic macular degeneration goes through stages of increasing severity.
- To begin there are not symptoms or visual loss.
- In the middle stages, patches blurring or blocking the field of vision may appear and the patient will probably need more light for activities like reading.
- Advanced atrophic macular degeneration is characterized by loss of function of light sensitive cells in the central area of the retina. The visual field has a patch obscuring vision which becomes larger and darker as the disease progresses. Patients start having problems reading and, sometimes, cannot recognize faces.
