The incidence of registered blindness caused by age‐related macular degeneration

Abstract

Membership applications to the Danish Society of the Blind were used as a register source of legal blindness (visual acuity < or = 6/60). Based on application forms completed by specialists in ophthalmology 1585 subjects were recorded as blind in 1993. 1132 subjects (71.4%) had age-related macular degeneration. Only 5% of the registered subjects with age-related macular degeneration were below 70 years of age. The median age was 82, equal for both gender. A female overrepresentation of 2.8:1 was found. Five-year age-specific incidence rates demonstrated an exponential rise of registered blindness due to age-related macular degeneration from age 60 to 90. A decline in incidence after the age of 90 is assumed to reflect underregistration of very old persons. This tendency of non-registration was particularly pronounced in elderly males. Estimated prevalence rates of registered blindness due to age-related macular degeneration increased 100-fold from the age group 60-64 to the age group 80-84. The age specific incidence rate for the age group 60-99 years was 140:100,000 for females and only 66:100,000 for males. The corresponding incidence rate for both sexes was 108:100,000. It is still a matter of dispute whether 'true' prevalence rates of blindness are higher in females than in males. The sex difference seems not to be explained by differences in 'visual impairment threshold of registration' among the registered persons.

Prevalence and the risk factors for visual impairment in age-related macular degeneration

“…Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in its late stage is the most common cause of adult blind registration in many developed countries, [1][2][3][4] with the prevalence of visual loss due to AMD being higher from 70 years of age. [5][6][7] The INDEYE study observed that all cases of advanced AMD were visually impaired with visual acuity (VA) worse than 6/24.…”

In Vitro Monitoring of a Cultured Human Retinal Pigment Epithelium Using 1375-nm Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography

“…The RPE cell density decreases slowly with age, affecting blood vessels with neovascularization and resulting in loss of vision. This is known as age-related macular degeneration and is the leading cause of blindness among the elderly worldwide [7][8][9][10]. Therefore, monitoring RPE cell density and morphology is the most important factor to be considered in clinical situations, particularly for post-or pre-operative situations such as grafting surgery, refractive surgery, or any transplant operation [11][12][13].…”

Metric properties of the MacDQoL, individualized macular-disease-specific quality of life instrument, and newly identified subscales in French, German, Italian, and American populations

“…AMD is the most common cause of all adult blindness in Western developed countries [4,5] and is the major reason for severe vision loss in people above 65 years of age [6,7]. End-stage (blinding) AMD is found in about 1.7% of all people older than age 50, and incidence rises with age (0.7% to 1.4% in people age 65 to 75, 11.0% to 18.5% in people older than age 85) [8].…”