How to slow down the progression of macular degeneration?
Macular degeneration is an age-related eye disease which bothers a large number of people aged more than fifty. Macular degeneration can cause people some damages to the retina, and what’s the worse, may cause people to lose their vision. Once we get macular degeneration, it is hard to bring our eyes back to the original state, the thing we need to do is to try every means to slow down its progress. The following will introduce some methods to slow down the progression of macular degeneration.
There are two kinds of macular degeneration, dry and wet macular degenerations. Macular degeneration mainly causes people to lose the sight in the central field of vision. Though people still have some peripheral vision, they will feel difficult or impossible to read or recognize faces after central vision lost. If we find there is some thing wrong with our eyes, for example, blurred vision or minor loss of vision, it is wise to visit our eye doctor immediately to check the eye problem. One point we should bear in mind, the earlier we find the eye problem, the easier for us to slow down its progression.
Though macular degeneration is a common eye problem among aged people, a lot of people do not know much how to slow down its progression. The study made by Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) will give us some help.
Researches show that a specific high-dose formulation of antioxidants and zinc have some good effects on slowing down the progression of the advanced macular degeneration (AMD). In addition, researches also prove that Vitamins have the function of stopping macular degeneration from intermediate stage to advanced stage, which means Vitamins can prevent us from loss vision.
Besides, LAST, which is short for the Lutein Anti-Oxidant Supplementation Trial, can also help us to slow down the progression of macular degeneration. Researches show that taking in some anti-oxidants and zinc together with 10 mg of daily Lutein will be good for improving our macular degeneration. And it is advised by ARED that people with macular degeneration should take in certain quantity and types of antioxidants and zinc everyday.
Just as we mentioned above, when aged people find there are some problems with their vision, they should visit their eye doctor promptly. Their eye doctor will check if they have caused macular degeneration, at which stage, and also give them some instructions on how to slow down the progression of macular degeneration. Though the AREDS formulation can not treat macular degeneration completely, it has some effects in slowing down its progression.
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Which kind of food can prevent macular degeneration?
Do you know some food can also have some good effect in preventing macular degeneration? As a matter of fact, medicines are proved not performed well to prevent macular, while some food has been testified to be effective for people to prevent macular degeneration after many scientific studies. The following will introduce the food that can prevent macular degeneration.
First, food containing beta-carotene or Vitamin E can reduce the possibility for people to develop macular degeneration. The survey done by the National Health and Nutrition Examination has proved fruits and vegetables rich in beta-carotene can help people to prevent macular degeneration. People can get this nutrition from collard greens, spinach, apricots, carrots, mangoes and squash. The study made by the Beaver Dam Eye Study can also prove the above point, at the same time, they also find food rich in Vitamin E can also have this function. The study is done among 2003 individuals at the age from 43 to 84. It is proved food rich in Vitamin E has a good effect in preventing the formation of druses and spots of pigmentation.
Second, drinking can also have some influence on developing macular degeneration. Scientists also make a research among 3072 adults at the age of 45 to 74. They find there are only 4% of adults who drink one glass of wine each month to develop macular degeneration, while for adults who do not drink wine, they have 9% to have macular degeneration. Surprisingly, for drinking beer, the situation is not the same. The Beaver Dam Eye Study find people who drink at least one beer a week have higher rate to develop macular degeneration than people who do not drink beer at all.
Third, the mixture of lutein, zeaxanthin, Vitamin A, B and C has some good effect in preventing macular degeneration. Lutein can be found in carrots, corn, greens, potatoes, tomatoes, and most fruits, which is a chemical relative of beta-carotene. Zeaxanthin is also relative of beta-carotene, which can be got from corn, fruit, paprika and spinach. Working together with Vitamin A, B and C, they will offer terrific effect to protect our macula, which has been approved by epidemiological studies. They work like this: Lutein and zeaxanthin make the macula to be characteristic yellow color, while lutein tending to accumulate around the edges of the eye, and zeaxanthin accumulate in the center of the eye.
Last but not least, studies also show food rich in selenium or zinc can also have the function of preventing macular degeneration. People can get this nutrition from broccosprouts, barley, beef, chicken, crab, lamb, oysters, turkey, and whole wheat.
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Two forms of age-related macular degeneration
Dry and wet forms of macular degeneration
Age related macular degeneration (AMD or ARMD) is an eye disease that mostly affects the old. Suffering from this condition, people have poor central vision while peripheral vision remains normal. There are dry and wet forms of AMD, both of which damage central vision. But these two types of macular degeneration have their own characteristics.
Also called non-neovascular macular degeneration, dry AMD is more chronic than wet form. Dry AMD is usually detected during a regular eye exam. This form of macular degeneration often begins at a middle age and appears as the accumulation of drusen in the eyes. Showing as deposits, the drusen buildup is usually unprocessed protein or waste products. Being yellow in color, the drusen buildup always occurs between the choroid and retina.
Drusen deposits are actually early signs of dry macular degeneration that can be found by an ophthalmologist. Obvious symptoms can be seen only until there is a significant amount of drusen. Over time, dry macular degeneration will progress into advance non-neovascular AMD. At such a stage, various symptoms will occur, including blurriness, scotomas, and dark areas of impaired vision. Patients with advanced dry AMD will chronically lose the ability to recognize detailed visual images. At the end, only peripheral vision is there for use. Some activities that require good eyesight such as driving are impossible.
Another form of age related macular degeneration is wet AMD, which is also named neovascular AMD. Wet AMD progresses much faster than dry AMD. In detail, wet AMD can develop into vision loss within several months, while dry AMD usually takes years to reach an advanced stage. Wet macular degeneration does not involve drusen accumulation. As the name neovascular AMD indicates, wet AMD involves an abnormal growth of blood vessels in the eyes. Appearing in the choroid, the abnormal growth of new blood vessel will rapidly develop into leaking blood or fluids. This leakage often causes scaring and damage to the macula, resulting in central vision loss.
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An Overview of Macular Degeneration
Macular degeneration is a progressive disease of the retina wherein the light-sensing cells in the central area of vision stop working and eventually die. It is age related and is a comparatively serious eye problem, which may cause the loss of vision, or more specifically, the loss in the center of the visual field. That is to say, the eye still sees objects to the side, since side (peripheral vision) is usually not affected, however, you will feel hard to read, recognize people or even places because of the macular degeneration in the central vision.
There are two types of macular degeneration, the dry and the wet.
Dry macular degeneration, or nonexudative, comparing to wet macular degeneration, is a more common form of the diseases and accounts for 90% of all Aged-related Macular Degeneration. It is the debris, which is referred as Drusen, built up between the choroid and the retina that causes the symptoms of blindness, for the debris would make the retina detached. There are basically no treatment for dry macular degeneration, but you can find certain ways to learn to cope with it.
Wet macular degeneration, or exudative, is a less common form, accounting for about merely 10%, but it is more severe than the dry for. It is the blood vessels growing from the choroid that affects the vision. When more and more blood vessels growing behind the retina, one’s vision becomes more and more blurry. There are treatments fro wet macular degeneration, either by medication or laser surgery. Normally, those measures can reverse the growth of the blood and make the condition less serious.
Then how can one judge that he or she is affected by macular degeneration, for there seems no well-defined symptom at the early stage. It only becomes noticeable as the condition worsens. One of the main measure is to observe whether there are yellow deposits in the macula, because it is the yellow deposits that make up the Drusen.
Therefore, to have an overall eye examination regularly is necessary, especially when you find there are symptoms include blurred vision, distorted vision, inability to discern color variations, delayed bright light exposure recovery, a decline in contrast sensitivity and central scotoma. For the cause of macular degeneration includes the growth of blood vessels, which have a possibility of blood leaking and bleeding, there may be ultimate damage that is irreversible.
What is more, if you have a family history of macular degeneration, you are among one of the candidates who have the risk of suffering from macular degeneration. Besides, things like Stargardt’s disease, Drusen, Stargardt’s disease, Drusen, Arg80GLY variant in C3 a complement protein, hypertension or high blood pressure, a diet high in fat, oxidative stress, a mutation in Fibulin-5, ethnic background and so on so forth have a potential risk for one to increase the risk of suffering from macular. You may not believe it that a diet high in fat, and exposure often to sunlight, particularly the blue light or high energy visible light are potential causes of macular degeneration.
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Knowledge Concerning the Relation Between Macular Degeneration, Glaucoma, and Cataracts
There are misconceptions among people who believe that one eye problems may aggravates any of other ones, for example, macular degeneration will aggravate glaucoma, or cataracts will aggravate macular degeneration. The fact is that macular degeneration is independent, and it is not tend to relate to some other conditions. In order to let you know they are unrelated, let’s have a view of each eye condition respectively.
Macular degeneration is always referred as age-related macular degeneration. It is a medical condition which usually affects the elders that result in a loss of vision in the center of the visual field because of damage to the retina.
A cataract is a clouding that develops in the crystalline lens of the eye. It is related to aging, which is very common in older people. Although both macular degeneration and cataract are related to aging, they are totally two different types of eye condition. The former is something affecting the retina or the macula while the latter is not, and a cataract, unlike macular degeneration, can be cured by removing or replacing by new lenses.
Glaucoma is a disease that affects the optic nerve and involves loss of retinal ganglion cells in a characteristic pattern and it is usually caused by high pressure. In a closed and fluid-filled system, if there are too much fluid in eyes, eyes will suffer from increasing pressure. Glaucoma can be a very serious eye condition, if not treated in time, a risk of complete loss of eyesight can be caused. As a matter of fact, glaucoma is fairly easy to be treated at its early stage.
Diabetic retinopathy is damage to the retina caused by complications of diabetes mellitus, which can eventually lead to blindness. It is a leading cause of blindness in American adults. Patients with diabetic retinopathy suffer from vessels bleeding or constricting, causing retinal detachment. This eye condition is usually treated by laser in the early stage. Some patients may even need focal laser surgery more than once to control the leaking fluid. Diabetic retinopathy is not related to macular degeneration, but has an influence on glaucoma and cataracts.
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Treatment Options for Wet Age-related Macular Degeneration Treatment
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a disease associated with aging that gradually destroys sharp, central vision, which is needed for seeing objects clearly and for common daily tasks such as reading and driving. Wet AMD occurs when abnormal blood vessels behind the retina start to grow under the macula. These new blood vessels tend to be very fragile and often leak blood and fluid, and if effective treatments are not taken to stop any further bleeding in the macular, damage to the macula occurs rapidly.
The symptoms of wet AMD may include straight lines or faces appear wavy; doorways seeming crooked; and a central blurry or blind spot, etc..
Is there any treatments for wet AMD? Strictly speaking, there is no real cure for wet AMD, but treatments to stop or slow the progression of this disease. That is to say, the disease and loss of vision may progress despite treatment. The usual treatments to ease off wet AMD include:
1. Laser surgery. For the reason that treatments for wet AMD can not cure macular degeneration, nor restore lost vision, the procedure by laser is just done by destroy the fragile blood vessels, preventing further loss of vision. However, while the laser destroy the blood vessels, some healthy tissue will also be destroyed at the same time. Another kind of laser surgery is performed by injecting with a light-sensitive medicine called verteporfin to destroy abnormal blood vessels in the retina, slowing the progression of wet macular degeneration.
2. Drug treatment. Wet AMD can also be treated with new drugs that are injected into the eye (anti-VEGF therapy) to promote the development of the leaky, immature blood vessels and block the effects of the growth factor.
3. Acupuncture therapy. This is a traditional Chinese treatment by using a fine needles to stimulate invisible lines of energy or what Chinese usually call Qi so as to correct the flow of Qi beneath the surface of the skin. Qi in Chinese culture is considered fairly important in the maintenance of good good health, therefore once the Qi is changed correctly, the function of the body can be changed as well.
4. Physical therapy. This procedure applies the use of microcurrent stimulation to improve circulation to the retina by delivering low-intensity electricity to the eye area. With the microcurrent stimulation, harmful waste products are believed to be removed.
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Introduction on macular degeneration
Macular degeneration is one of the common eye diseases that bother a large number of people worldwide and it is especially common among aging people. However, people do not know much about this eye disorder. The following will give a brief introduction on macular degeneration on its definition, causes and main types in the hope that it will give people more understanding of this eye disease.
Macular degeneration refers to the lost of the central portion of the sight. Patients with macular degeneration will have to suffer from peripheral or side vision. For example, the things right in front of you will be like the face of a person or the words in a book. Though this is not blindness, it can never be neglected.
Then what causes macular degeneration? There are three layers below the retina, which are the retinal pigment epithelium (PRE), bruch’s membrane and the choroi. Their function is to transmit nutrients and oxygen to the rods and cones, and also remove the built-up waste. But for people with macular degeneration, these three layers lose their functions so that less nutrients and oxygen can be transmitted to the cells and wastes gathers. Cone cells are the primary cells for macula, which plays the role of clear vision, color distinguishing and central vision. That is to say, without them, we can not see clearly of small details, or distinguish similar colors. Just imagine if cone cells can not get enough nutrients and oxygen and more wastes build up, what they will be? Yes, cone cells will begin to die. As a result, people will lose their clear and central vision.
About the categories of macular degeneration, there are usually three main types: The first is dry macular degeneration (dry AMD). This is mainly related to age. Among all the age related macular degeneration, dry AMD is the most common one. It has the feature of more gradual vision loss rather than severe vision loss. Besides, there is also another macular degeneration, called wet macular degeneration (wet AMD). Compared with dry AMD, the central vision loss of wet AMD is more sudden. Though it is not as common as dry AMD, we should also pay close attention as dry AMD can also transfer to wet AMD. The last main macular degeneration is juvenile macular degeneration (JMD), which is also known as macular dystrophy. This is mainly caused by genetic diseases and can be detected in people’s childhood or adolescence.
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Causes and remedy of scotoma
Scotoma can be caused by many factors, such as macular degeneration, strokes, traumatic brain injuries and disorders, which affect the retina or optic nerve. The most common form of blind spot is central scotoma, which is closely associated with macular degeneration.
Actually, macular degeneration is the most dangerous factor of scotoma, although other conditions listed above all affect the retina or the optic nerve. Central blind spot caused by macular degeneration is quite understandable. In the back of the retina, macula is responsible for central vision. However, macular degeneration can cause the photoreceptor cells or cone cells in the eye to die, which results in central blind spot.
In some cases, a central scotoma may enlarge as the macular degeneration progresses. Besides a spot in the central vision, a central scotoma has other symptoms such as need for more light, and contrast, difficulty perceiving certain colors and so on. These symptoms can be quite disabling and frustrating for some people. In serious cases, one’s independence can be affected by this retinal disease.
Most people suffering from central scotoma have to use their peripheral vision during most tasks. The formal term eccentric viewing is used to describe this special viewing way. A person using eccentric viewing always looks slightly away from an object in order to take use of his or her peripheral vision, rather than the defected central vision. In this way, the damaged cone cells do nothing but the rod cells can perform peripheral vision effectively.
In some instances, rod cells can be trained to perform some tasks that belong to cone cells in a person without central scotoma. These functions include detailed vision and color perception. But only with proper training, lots of practice as well as the appropriate visual aids can the rod cells acquire these functions. This process also requires the brain to learn new techniques and ways of seeing the world.
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Types of visual aids for macular degeneration
Macular degeneration in old people always causes poor vision or even visual loss. As the disease progresses over time, visual aids are probably needed, in order to maintain daily pleasures such as reading, playing cards, baking, watching movies and so on. There are a wide variety of gadgets and tools such as magnifiers, bright lights, bold print books and so forth.
Magnifiers are most widely accepted by macular degeneration patients. Styles of magnifiers include floor lamp magnifiers, pocket magnifiers, electronic magnifiers and reading ones. These different magnifiers suit different tasks and also require different ways to use them. The power of magnifier is essential to offer proper vision aid.
Another form of magnifier is computer screen magnifier. This magnifier can enlarge the print on computer screen. There are still other ways to reduce computer glare and increase the contrast.
Electronic reading device can read books, magazines, newspapers and blogs. This kind of device has embedded speech converter. With this help, old people can continue to enjoy books, periodicals and newspapers.
Some old people are reluctant to give up their phones. Currently some special designs of phone are available. Some of them have large buttons, while some others can display a picture of the person to be called.
Another type of low vision aid is low vision CCTV (closed circuit television), which allows people to see recipe cards, photographs, mail, prescription bottles and so forth. Some of them also offer mirrors for a better shave.
Patients with macular degeneration usually need increased lighting. This simplest way of visual aid is often underestimated. Ott lighting is capable of simulating natural day light. It can also enhance contrast, reduce glare and provide better clarity. Another way is to install more lamps or brighter bulbs.
In addition to those devices or tools described above, large print books in 16 point font are helpful for macular degeneration patients. These special books usually offer dark and crisp letters.
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