14 DAY TRIAL // Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the leading causes of blindness in a number of countries, including Australia. Experts at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have now developed a new method of detecting the condition early on.
Applying it on a large scale could result in a sharp decrease in the number of patients who go blind as a result of this disorder. The team says that the method can be used on healthy people as well, in order to determine whether they are at risk of developing the condition later on.
The early-detection technique apparently functions very well, allowing AMD to be detected at its subclinical stages, when it does not yet manifest sufficient systems to warrant a full diagnostic.
One of the first clinical signs to appear in patients is a small modification at the back of their eyes. When ophthalmologists see this, they know that macular degeneration may be setting in. Though this degeneration is obvious, it is not the first sign of the condition.
The QUT group says that the actual degeneration begins many years ahead of the first symptoms manifesting themselves. This is why Dr. Beatrix Feigl, an eye specialist at the university, led to two-year investigation.
She is based at the QUT Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), and coordinated the group that sought to develop the dim light vision test as a potent diagnostics tool for the early onset of age-related macular degeneration.
“We can detect subclinical visual impairment in healthy participants genetically at risk for AMD. In the future we hope this test might be utilised by ophthalmologists and optometrists to identify patients with a high genetic risk of developing AMD but without any clinical signs of the disease,” she explains.
“This would enable specialists to advise patients on lifestyle changes which may delay disease onset and reduce its severity,” the expert adds, saying that half of AMD patients manifest a genetic predisposition towards developing the disease.
At the same time, poor diets, lack of exercise, smoking and other lifestyle factors influence people risks of becoming blind as well. “We know that lifestyle changes can decrease a person's chance of getting worse forms of the disease,” Feigl explains.