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Late AMD has significant impact on visual functioning
Br J Ophthalmol. 2011;95(5):666-670.
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Late age-related macular degeneration has a significant impact on visual functioning, while early age-related macular degeneration, drusen and changes in retinal pigment epithelium do not, a study found.
"Our study documents that late-stage AMD is associated with substantially poorer vision-specific functioning when compared with early AMD or no AMD in a population-based setting," the authors said.
Of the 4,168 patients in the population-based cross-sectional Singapore Malay Eye Study, 3,252 participated in this analysis.
Early AMD was found in 3.5% of patients, and late AMD was found in 0.34%.
Late AMD was found to be independently associated with poorer visual functioning after adjusting for age, gender, education, income, smoking status, ocular condition and hypertension (P = .01), the study said.
A multinomial logistic regression model showed that patients with late AMD were twice as likely to have low overall visual functioning than those without the disease.
The authors noted that interventions such as dietary modifications and smoking cessation should be encouraged in patients with signs of early AMD to help reduce progression and impact on daily life.