How Much Do You Know About Age-Related Macular Degeneration?

The risk increases with age. But AMD can occur during middle age.

Dry AMD is the most common form. This form gets worse so slowly that a person may not notice any vision problems for years. The wet form of AMD at first causes straight lines to appear wavy. This is because blood vessels leak blood beneath the macula. This distorts vision. Wet AMD affects vision more quickly and dramatically than the dry form and is more likely to lead to loss of central vision. Central vision is also called straight-ahead vision. It allows a person to read, drive, and recognize people's faces.

AMD can cause a loss of central vision. This makes a person's vision become fuzzier. Over time, they have problems reading, driving, and recognizing people's faces. Most people with AMD still have their peripheral vision.

Family history of AMD is also a main risk factor. Other risk factors include:

• Gender. Women are more likely to develop AMD than men.
• Being overweight
• Being older than 50
• Having high blood pressure, heart disease, or high cholesterol
• Race. Whites are more likely to develop AMD than African Americans.

Other symptoms include slightly blurred vision overall, needing extra light for reading, and difficulty recognizing a face until you are very near the person. For a person with the wet form of AMD, straight lines appear wavy.

The cause of AMD isn't yet known, but genes and environmental factors may both play a role. Researchers say that one way to help prevent macular degeneration is to eat a healthy low-fat diet. Include plenty of fruits and vegetables, particularly leafy green vegetables such as spinach and kale. Other good health habits include getting regular exercise, not smoking, wearing sunglasses with UV protection, and getting regular eye exams.

An eye care provider can diagnose AMD with several tests. The provider will check your vision and also dilate your eyes to look at your retina directly by using a slit lamp and special lenses. If your provider suspects that you have wet AMD, you may need a test called fluorescein angiography. This test helps your provider know if leaking blood vessels in the macula can be treated. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is also often used to help diagnose wet AMD. It can be used to see how the disease responds to treatment. OCT lets your provider see the retina as a cross-section and see any fluid that may have leaked into or behind the macula. There is no cure for AMD, and there is currently no treatment for dry AMD. But treatments for dry AMD are under development. High-dose antioxidants can make it less likely for people with dry AMD to lose vision. Wet AMD can be treated with medicines injected into the eye. Much less often, a laser treatment call photodynamic therapy can be used. In this treatment, the healthcare provider injects a medicine into a vein in your arm. The medicine travels to the abnormal blood vessels behind the macula. The provider then uses a "cold" laser. This causes the medicine to close off the leaking blood vessels. Rarely, a "hot" laser is used to burn the abnormal blood vessels. Certain medicines slow or block the growth of new blood vessels in wet AMD. This preserves and sometimes improves sight. These medicines are injected into the eye every few weeks to few months. One medicine recently approved uses a tiny implant to deliver it to the eye in a continuous supply. The device needs to be refilled only about every 6 months.