Does Macular Degeneration Cause Total Blindness

Macular degeneration doesn t cause total blindness because it doesn t affect your peripheral vision.

Does macular degeneration cause total blindness.

Amd does not cause total blindness but only loss of central vision. The patients lose their ability to take part in activities. Your ability to see colors and fine detail becomes impaired. Other disorders however can cause problems with your peripheral vision such as cataracts and glaucoma.

If only one eye is affected you may not notice any changes in your vision because your good eye may compensate for the weak eye. When to see a doctor. At first there is little or no vision loss. Can the dry form of amd lead to the wet form.

A person who has been diagnosed with macular degeneration is naturally concerned about permanently losing their sight since the eye disease is the number one cause of severe blindness. When the photoreceptors in the macula degrade patients go blind. Patients with macular degeneration lose their central vision. Your peripheral vision generally will remain intact except for highly advanced cases of wet amd.

When the macula does not work properly your central vision can be blurry and you may have areas that are dark or distorted. And the condition doesn t affect side peripheral vision so it rarely causes total blindness. These changes may be the first indication of macular degeneration particularly if you re older than age 50. It s also the number one.

Age related macular degeneration or amd is the most common cause of vision loss in people over the age of 55. What is macular degeneration. The macula allows you to see fine details clearly and do things such as read and drive. These wet forms of macular degeneration involve the growth of blood vessels deep within the eye and when those vessels leak or burst they cause rapid loss of vision.

There are some forms of macular degeneration that can cause a rapid deterioration of vision unfortunately. You notice changes in your central vision. Dry macular degeneration usually affects both eyes. The peripheral vision however is left untouched so macular degeneration does not by itself lead to total blindness.

It s estimated that more than 10 million americans have this disease. Macular degeneration doesn t affect side peripheral vision so it rarely causes total blindness. Macular degeneration is a disease of the macula a small area in the retina at the back of the eye. As the disease progresses your vision can become blurred or distorted in the center of the vision.

See age related macular degeneration does not cause blindness many affected people move about with no assistance at all and lead independent productive lives.