(Featuring “Sarah’s Day”) by Dan Roberts As an unabashed gadget geek, I have followed the development of low vision technology since my diagnosis in 1994. The first fifteen of those years offered a number of optical and non-optical devices to help our low vision community get by, and we have hungrily consumed each and every [Read More]
News
Our Amazing Eyes
Eyes are thought to have first developed in animals, in a very basic form, around 550 million years ago. Since then, they have become the second most complex organ after the brain. We hear all the time about the wonderful ways our brains work for us, but our peepers sometimes don’t get the respect they [Read More]
How Do They Come Up With Those Drug Names?
Macugen. Lucentis. Avastin. Eylea. Beovu. All of those are anti-VEGF drugs prescribed for treatment of wet AMD and other conditions involving growth and leakage of new blood vessels in the retina. Those brand names appear in articles and ads, but rarely in eye specialists’ notes and prescription orders. Such names are designed mainly for public [Read More]
Trials to begin for stem cell-based therapy to treat geographic atrophy
A National Eye Institute (NEI) study will test the safety of a stem cell treatment for the dry (atrophic) form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The researchers will take a patient’s own blood cells, and in a lab, convert them into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) capable of becoming any type of cell in the [Read More]
Cognitive Decline Associated With AMD
Investigators have found significant associations between lessened brain functions and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). 5604 people age 40+ who participated in the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey have been found to experience increased memory problems and confusion, seemingly as a result of their AMD. The report was published in the December 2019 issue [Read More]