What Causes Macular Degeneration by Susan Slobac

Age-related macular degeneration, which is also called AMD or ARMD, is a an eye disease that is the number one cause of blindness and vision loss for Americans over the age of 65. Taking into account the percentage of Americans in this age bracket has grown considerably in recent years, macular degeneration has become a very serious concern for many individuals afflicted with the disease and the loved ones who help care for them.

Macular degeneration got its name from the part of the eye that is affected by the disease: the macula. Your macula, which is a part of the retina, is what gives you the ability to sharply focus on objects within your central vision. This type of sharp focus is necessary to do many everyday tasks, like driving, reading, writing and focusing on other people’s faces when they are speaking to you. When the macula is injured or damaged, is it unable to reflect light back to retina correctly and a varying degree of central vision loss occurs; one that can eventually lead to blindness.

What Causes Macular Degeneration?

There are two main causes of macular degeneration, each causing a different type of the disease: “wet” or “dry” AMD. Dry AMD is caused by a thinning or degeneration of the macular tissues. This creates deposits of pigment that look like yellowish spots on the retina. While there is no cure dry AMD, the central vision loss it causes is gradual and not as severe as the vision loss that occurs with wet AMD.

Roughly 10% of dry macular degeneration cases progress to become wet macular degeneration. Wet macular degeneration is a neovascular disease that occurs when new blood vessels begin to grow beneath the retina and then leak fluid and blood. While the body is attempting to supply more oxygen and nutrients to the retina with the growth of these blood vessels, the leakage can unfortunately cause scarring and permanent damage to light-sensitive retinal cells and create blind spots in your central vision.

Macular Degeneration Diagnosis

There are a few different ways that your eye doctor can diagnose macular degeneration. Sometimes is it possible for your doctor to perform a routine eye exam and see yellowish spots or fluid in the back of your eye. Another ways to diagnose it is to perform a basic vision test using an Amsler Grid, which is a black and white grid with a small black dot in the center. When patients who have macular degeneration look at the grid, the straight lines are distorted and blurry and there are missing or dark areas in the center.

To learn more about macular degeneration or find out if the disease is causing your central vision loss, you should make an appointment with your eye care physician today.

About the Author

Susan Slobac has had parents diagnosed with macular degenration. She has had experience with macular degeneration symptoms and treatments. In this article, she discusses what the causes of macular degeneration are.