Researchers based in Australia have come up with a quicker way to determine if people have age-related macular degeneration (AMD), reported redOrbit on October 8.
According to the article, AMD, a vision-loss causing eye ailment that typically impacts people older than 50 years old, is more more prevalent among people who smoke cigarettes, who are Caucasian and who have a family history of the condition. And people who go in for AMD testing have historically had to stay in a darkened room for one-third of an hour before the testing procedure could commence.
However, researchers have now come up with a fast and reliable test for AMD diagnoses that can be performed under regular light conditions. According to the article, the researchers’ study demonstrates that AMD can be diagnosed just as simply and reliably under right lights as it can after people sit in a dark room for one-third of an hour. The article added that the study also demonstrates that the new technique is also less expensive.
Prof. Ted Maddess, from the Australian National University and the Vision Centre, said in the article that AMD is the root cause of close to 50% of all instances of legal blindness in the country. Prof. Maddess explained that it adversely impacts on in seven people who are older than 50, costing the country $2.6 billion annually. He added in the article that, in terms of the global picture, AMD adversely impacts up to 30 million people, costing a whopping $343 billion annually.
According to the article, Prof. Maddess said that, although current AMD tests are conducted in the light, researchers have suggested that it might be a better idea to allow patients to adapt their vision to the dark prior to undergoing AMD tests. The reasoning behind this is that patients’ rod receptors — which refer to vision cells that people utilize to see not only in low light, but also to see in black and white — die sooner in AMD than do the cone receptors used to see color over the course of the daylight hours. As a result of this, many researchers have said that AMD tests could be more reliable if they were based on the health of patients’ rod receptors, said Prof. Maddess in the article.
But Prof. Maddess said in the article that a recent study has revealed that the eye’s cones, although dying after rods die, begin to deteriorate when night vision cells start to deteriorate.
The article added that Maddess and the team of researchers he worked with wanted to determine whether or not the cones can get to be “just as sick as the rods” and, if they can, if there would be any difference if an AMD test was conducted “under bright lights.” To get the answer, the researchers assessed patients’ vision at light levels conducive to both cones and rods.
According to the article, Prof. Maddess created the TrueField Analyzer device to assess how peoples’ pupils react to LCD screen images. He created the device with assistance from Seeing Machines, a company located in Australia.
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Reference: http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1112708574/macular-degeneration-test-100812/