October 14, 2021
Age macular degeneration is a degenerative disease that causes a loss of central vision. Ophthalmologist Rufino Silva, president of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology, explains the contours of this problem that affects the central area of the retina.
Age macular degeneration, also known as AMD, is a disease that can affect people after the age of 50. The older a person is, the more likely they are to have the disease. It is a disease that has an early form with practically no symptoms: the person does not know they have the disease and only observation by the ophthalmologist allows the correct diagnosis to be made. With time the disease progresses and in the intermediate forms it can cause, for example, changes in contrast vision, colour vision and low light vision. But, in the late stages of the disease, there is a serious loss of vision and there may even be blindness; in fact, this disease is the first cause of blindness after 65 years of age in Portugal. It is not total blindness. The person with the disease has the capacity to orient himself, but is incapacitated for very common situations of daily life, such as: reading, writing, check the time, driving. Prevention involves a diet rich in vegetables and fruit, taking vitamins and antioxidants that have been studied for this disease and which may be prescribed by the ophthalmologist. It also involves, and is very important, not smoking and taking physical exercise.
Then there is treatment. There is a treatment for the wet forms of the disease in the late stages and it is very important because it can prevent severe vision loss; this treatment is done with intravitreal injections and it may be necessary to maintain this treatment for several years.
And how can a person know if they have this late form of the disease?
The person who already knows he has age macular degeneration begins to see objects or people's faces first distorted, then a shadow appears that is there in the central field of vision, preventing him from seeing completely the face he is staring at. The person cannot read, cannot write, cannot, for example, see television pictures.
It is very important: anyone who notices distortion of the images should immediately see their ophthalmologist. And it is important, very important, to start treatment within one or two weeks.
Tomorrow, we take questions about diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes, and a major cause of blindness in adults.
With the support of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology.
