Wet AMD: How a Vision Specialist Can Help

Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the type of macular degeneration that can progress quickly and lead to central vision loss, can make it difficult to recognize a friend’s face or even see the food on your plate.

Vision loss caused by wet AMD can have a global effect on your life, says Lylas Mogk, MD, director of the Center for Vision Rehabilitation and Research at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and chair of the vision rehabilitation committee of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. That’s because everyday activities, such as reading, writing, cooking, and getting around, become difficult with wet AMD.

A vision specialist can help you manage life with wet AMD by showing you techniques that allow you to complete daily activities independently and safely, and make modifications to help you see your world more easily.

Vision Changes With Wet AMD

More than 10 million people in the United States have macular degeneration. Most have the earlier form of the disease called dry macular degeneration, in which retinal cells important for your vision break down. But for 10 to 15 percent of those people, dry AMD will transition to the wet type, according to the American Macular Degeneration Foundation.

With wet AMD, abnormal blood vessels form in the eye, and they can bleed and leak. When that happens, it affects the macula, the part of the eye that helps you see straight ahead and make out details and colors.

It begins with a distortion in the way you see, such as straight lines looking wavy, and can lead to a loss of central vision. It’s like putting a dab of petroleum jelly in the middle of your glasses that you can’t wipe off, Dr. Mogk says.

Wet AMD can also affect how well you see contrast. It becomes hard to see the edge or the depth of a bathtub if it’s the same color as the walls and floor, or to distinguish cauliflower, skinless chicken, and mashed potatoes on a white plate, says Annie Riddering, OTR/L, CLVT, a certified low-vision specialist and director of rehabilitation for the Center for Vision Rehabilitation and Research at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

Even cooking can be difficult. People with wet AMD may have trouble seeing when meat is done or spotting a piece of cooked steak on a black frying pan.

How a Vision Specialist Can Help

There are available treatments for wet AMD that can help halt the progression of the disease and even help you regain some of the vision that’s been lost. A retinal specialist typically treats wet AMD, Mogk says.

An ophthalmologist or an optometrist can perform a low-vision evaluation, Mogk says. Depending on the results, you might be a candidate for low-vision rehabilitation from an occupational therapist or a certified low-vision therapist (who is often also an occupational therapist). The specialist will show you techniques to accomplish daily activities that have become difficult so you can live more comfortably with AMD.

These techniques may include:

• Using devices to help you see better, such as high-powered reading glasses, a hand-held magnifier for reading mail or price tags, or a larger stand magnifier to use when reading newspapers and books.
• Making easy changes at home if seeing contrast is an issue. These can be as simple as using a white mug for your coffee, placing your toothbrush on a dark-colored wash cloth, organizing pills over a dark plate so you’re better able to make them out, and having two sets of measuring cups in dark and light colors, Riddering says.
• Using high-contrast marks in your house to outline the edges of your bathtub, sinks, and steps.
• Buying pill bottles, prescription labels, or glucose meters that can “talk” to you instead of you having to read them.

Wendy Kindred, a 79-year-old painter and printmaker in Portland, Maine, lost some of her central vision from macular degeneration and has learned techniques to stay independent, partly through working with occupational therapists.

She uses a closed-circuit television to read newspapers and bills and do crossword puzzles. If she has trouble reading a recipe or the temperature knob on her oven, she uses a hand-held magnifier.

Although Kindred had to give up driving six years ago because oncoming cars seemed to appear out of nowhere, she lives in a city with public transportation that allows her to get around on her own. She memorizes the bus schedule because she can’t rely on her vision to see the bus number.

At restaurants, she has mistaken the pat of butter for potatoes more than once. “It’s a real shock” when she puts it in her mouth, she says. And because menus are difficult to read, she asks her dining partner to tell her what looks good.

Kindred has trouble recognizing faces, so she tries to identify people based on their hairstyle or what they’re wearing. She had to give up painting portraits for that reason, but she continues to paint still life objects.

Wet AMD doesn’t have to take away your independence. Getting help from a vision specialist and learning how to work around your vision loss can make it easier.

Source: www.everydayhealth.com