Aging Sight

Of course, you don't have to get older to need vision correction. Even children sometimes need vision correction. But there are two major eye problems that can be caused by the aging process. The first is macular degeneration, and the other is diabetic retinopathy.

It comes too late for many older people, but there is hope on the horizon for the baby boomers that are just now reaching their golden years. There have been some encouraging new breakthroughs in age-related eye problems in the last few years.

Both macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy cause vision to deteriorate progressively. People who have diabetes are more vulnerable to both conditions. These new technologies hold a lot of promise.

The idea is to catch the problem early, and the earlier, the better. If either macular degeneration or diabetic retinopathy is caught in the early stages, the progression of the vision loss can be slowed. Sometimes it can be stopped altogether, and there have even been cases in which the vision has actually improved.

Extremely precise lasers can by used to treat the damaged area of the eye painlessly. (Painlessly is a good thing!) Steroids are also proving to be useful in stopping the damage to the vision. Perhaps the most promising of the new treatments for macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy is a drug called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor. This drug is applied directly to the inside of the eye. VEGF has been used mostly to treat wet macular degeneration. The vision loss is stabilized in most patients, and has even been reversed in about a third of the cases.

Advancements in imaging techniques have made many of these new treatments for macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy possible. There is hope that in the future, these diseases can be stopped or even prevented.