How Can Low Vision Affect Your Eyes?
February is AMD and Low Vision Awareness Month, and Davis Eyecare wants to ensure you are getting the right professional care for your vision health issues.
What Is Low Vision?
As we age, we may notice that our vision starts to deteriorate. This is why it’s important to see your eyecare professional regularly, so they can check if there is a more serious underlying condition causing your eyes to deteriorate.
Most low vision issues are caused by:
AMD affects your macula at the back of your eye, which is responsible for your central vision and often go unnoticed for years until the disease has already progressed. Most patients will initially notice blurred vision, difficulty making out details, distorted wavy lines, or a dark spot in their central vision. These may first appear as trouble reading, driving, recognizing faces, or distinguishing the world around you.
Many people may attribute these symptoms to ageing and delay seeing their optometrist, which has subsequently led to a sharp increase in the number of cases of AMD in the US.
It is believed that more than 2.95 million Americans suffer from some form of AMD, an increase of more than 50% since 2000, and this eye disease is known to be the leading cause of vision loss for seniors over the age of 60. The probability of developing AMD can be attributed to several environmental and biological factors including:
- Age
- Family history
- Race
- Gender
- Poor nutrition
- Smoking
- Heart conditions or high blood pressure
Vision Care for AMD
The best way to prevent and treat AMD is to visit your optometrist regularly. Without treatment, sufferers can experience long term vision impairment and irreversible blindness. This is where our low vision specialists come into the picture, both reviewing your eye health and recommending a customized management plan for your AMD.
We have sophisticated tools and training to identify what is causing your low vision, like our OCT scan, which can help to detect changes at the back of the eye, including early signs of AMD, allowing us to act quickly to diagnose you and find suitable treatment to slow down its progression.
There are also effective treatments available to slow down the progression of AMD and manage low vision in-house. We often advise those who suffer from, or are at risk of AMD, to take certain vitamin supplements to help promote a healthy macular and slow down progression, such as our EyePromise Lutein & Zeaxanthin supplements.
Other solutions to help you cope with low vision on a day-to-day basis, include adjusting your lighting at home so you are able to see objects with greater clarity, enhancing the font size of text on your computer and phone screens, and using magnifiers to help you read with ease.
Our experienced team is here to take the time to understand your visual and lifestyle needs so they can help you determine which solutions will work best for you.
We are proud to offer a wide range of advanced visual aids that have been specially designed by Enhanced Vision Systems (EVS) for low vision, such as the portable or stand Max Magnifiers, for superior vision quality when looking at the TV, computer, books, magazines and even medicine labels. With soft and high contrast options and magnification up to 30 times available, this is definitely one of the most popular low vision aids for our AMD patients, allowing them to regain some independence in their lives.
We are committed to providing our patients with exceptional vision care, and our low vision clinic team is here to offer the highest level of AMD treatment expertise and knowledge to help you enjoy your life and maximize your vision.
Remember, early diagnosis is the best way to prevent the onset or progression of eye diseases like AMD. Don’t suffer in silence, or delay getting seen if you are concerned about your vision – contact us today to arrange a consultation with one of our low vision specialists, and start your journey to better vision and eye health!
