By Jessica Goodman
Times-News Staff Writer
Published: Monday, March 30, 2009 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, March 29, 2009 at 9:14 p.m.
Two years ago, Gisela Hennig, 83, noticed straight lines weren’t so straight.
“I was sitting on my porch and I noticed the window sides were kind of crocked,” she said. “I didn’t know what was wrong, but something wasn’t kosher.”
She went to the ophthalmologist and was referred to Dr. Robert Park, the retina specialist at Carolina Ophthalmology. He diagnosed her with age-related macular degeneration.
“Age-related macular degeneration is a disease that affects a deep layer of cells underneath the eye,” said Park.
The eyes work similarly to a camera, explained Park. In a camera, light enters and is focused on film. In the eye, light is focused onto a light sensitive layer known as the retina. The most sensitive area of the retina is a yellow-colored area called the macula. According to Park, the area is about the size of a pencil eraser. Macular degeneration occurs when the RPE cells, which feed and support the light sensitive cells in the macula, are damaged. When the RPE cells are damaged, the light sensitive cells die and vision worsens. The central vision will gradually be lost to the point of legal blindness. Macular degeneration is the leading cause of legal blindness in the western world, explained Park.
“With time, (sufferers of macular degeneration) notice they’re developing a black spot or a gray spot,” said Park.
Helen Letner, 67, thought she was suffering from cataracts at first.
“The right eye just kept getting worse and worse,” she said.
When she went to see her eye doctor, her doctor realized it wasn’t the cataracts that were affecting her eyes. She was diagnosed with macular degeneration.
“It’s frightening because none of us want to go blind,” said Letner.
There are two forms of macular degeneration. Eighty-five percent of people have the dry type of macular degeneration, which is characterized by RPE cells becoming diseased and dying. Blindness gradually develops over the years. Treatment for the dry type of the disease is mostly preventive or to slow the disease’s progression and stabilize a person’s vision. Patients are encouraged to stop smoking and increase their intake of leafy vegetables, nuts and fish or fish oil.
“It’s a disease that’s very common,” said Park.
Both Letner and Hennig have the wet form of age-related macular degeneration. Fifteen percent of patients have the wet form of macular degeneration.
With the wet form, “new blood vessels grow from a deep layer of the eye called the choroids into the space under the RPE cells,” said Park. “The new blood vessels are fragile and leak blood and fluid causing rapid central vision loss.”
“If they’re looking at a door frame or look at perhaps a telephone pole, they may notice a section of the pole disappears or the pole is bending,” said Park. “They may be able to see the beginning or the end of a sentence, but not the middle.”
Legal blindness quickly develops with the wet form. Treatment is centered around stopping new blood vessels from growing. Park uses a new drug called Lucentis, introduced in 2005, which helps prevent new blood vessels from growing. Patients usually get multiple injections into the eye from four months to two years. According to Park, 96 percent of patients have stabilization of their disease with 40 percent having improvement of eyesight.
“The first time I was here, I couldn’t see the big E on the chart,” said Letner. After her first injection, she could see several lines down.
“I was a little scared,” said Hennig. “There’s a new medication and it seems to help.”
The average age of the loss of sight related to macular degeneration is 65. The earliest onset of the disease is 40. Symptoms include blurry vision, blind spots and the appearance of crooked lines.
“I couldn’t imagine going blind,” added Park, when asked why he wanted to raise awareness. “Sight it precious.”
Park suggested contacting your eye care professional immediately if you see any of the symptoms.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Pennfield Lions Club donates video magnifier
TIM BEUCHLER • READER SUBMITTED • MARCH 18, 2009
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Pennfield Lions Club purchased a new Optelec Desktop Video Magnifier for Beatrice Young, who suffers from macular degeneration. Beatrice had a video magnifier loaned to her on a trial basis with the option to buy the magnifier, but finances prevented her from purchasing the equipment.
Beatrice Young's family contacted Pennfield Lion Tim Beuchler requesting help with their mom's eye vision problems. Macular degeneration prevented Beatrice to do any reading, and difficulty writing checks to pay bills and read her prescription dosages. On February 18th, the Pennfield Lions Club Board of Directors unanimously voted to purchase the equipment for Beatrice, the Pennfield Lions Club spent $1,970.00 on the video magnifier, and delivered it to her apartment on February 23rd. Beatrice was overjoyed with the magnifier and commented, "I can see again!" The 17" Video Magnifier will magnify anything under the viewfinder 2 to over 50 times its original size, always maintaining perfect focus.
Pennfield Lions Club are very active in the Pennfield community and very supportive of the Food Bank. Anyone interested in joining the Pennfield Lions Club should contact Membership Director Darrell VanVleet at 968-4594.
TIM BEUCHLER • READER SUBMITTED • MARCH 18, 2009
Post a Comment Recommend Print this pageE-mail this articleShare
Pennfield Lions Club purchased a new Optelec Desktop Video Magnifier for Beatrice Young, who suffers from macular degeneration. Beatrice had a video magnifier loaned to her on a trial basis with the option to buy the magnifier, but finances prevented her from purchasing the equipment.
Beatrice Young's family contacted Pennfield Lion Tim Beuchler requesting help with their mom's eye vision problems. Macular degeneration prevented Beatrice to do any reading, and difficulty writing checks to pay bills and read her prescription dosages. On February 18th, the Pennfield Lions Club Board of Directors unanimously voted to purchase the equipment for Beatrice, the Pennfield Lions Club spent $1,970.00 on the video magnifier, and delivered it to her apartment on February 23rd. Beatrice was overjoyed with the magnifier and commented, "I can see again!" The 17" Video Magnifier will magnify anything under the viewfinder 2 to over 50 times its original size, always maintaining perfect focus.
Pennfield Lions Club are very active in the Pennfield community and very supportive of the Food Bank. Anyone interested in joining the Pennfield Lions Club should contact Membership Director Darrell VanVleet at 968-4594.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Eye Donation: A Gift the Gives Twice
On average, two out of three Iowans mark "yes" to organ donation on their driver's license. The state boasts the highest donor designation rate in the country.
This is good news for patients with eye disorders, and University of Iowa physicians and scientists also laud Iowans' generosity. March is National Eye Donation Awareness Month and highlights the year-round efforts of UI experts and the Iowa Lions Eye Bank who work together to utilize the donated tissue.
"Iowa Lions Eye Bank facilitates the gift of sight through transplant and the gift of answers through research," said Katie Charter, director of donor development at the eye bank. "They are both equally important in sight restoration and preservation."
Only the cornea and sclera can be transplanted; the cornea is the clear dome, which covers the front of the eye, that helps focus light, and the sclera is the white fibrous tissue that protects the eye.
Surgeons perform about 40,000 cornea transplants each year in the United States. In 95 percent of cases, the procedure successfully restores a recipient's vision. The Iowa Lions Eye Bank, founded in 1955, has provided more than 15,000 corneas for transplantation, and helped the UI obtain the latest devices for these procedures.
Eye donations lead to additional opportunities for helping patients; scientists can use donated ocular tissue for research and teaching.
Other than a call from the eye bank to retrieve a sample, few other circumstances could rouse researchers in the UI Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences from their beds at 4 a.m. One such scientist is Robert Mullins, Ph.D., a UI associate professor. His team uses the donated tissue to study a potential cause of macular degeneration, a common eye disorder.
Seeking ways to diagnose and treat macular degeneration in its early stages, UI scientists have been awarded millions of dollars in NIH funding to study multiple facets of the disorder. Macular degeneration is largely responsible for blindness in the elderly population in industrialized countries. It affects one in seven adults older than age 75, and is often known as age-related macular degeneration. The macula is part of the retina, the layer of the eye that contains photoreceptor cells. When cells in the macula get damaged, vision loss -- sometimes severe -- can result.
At his lab in the UI Carver Family Center for Macular Degeneration, Mullins and his team explore how the blanket of blood vessels nourishing the retina has a role in disease development.
However, Mullins said researchers face one major hurdle. With the exception of primates, the animal models available do not have maculas. For his research findings to eventually reach clinical practice, Mullins relies on donated human eye tissue. His colleagues and team members are on call at all times, ready to whisk a sample to the lab to make sure the cells do not start to break down.
"The field suffered a lot from the lack of appropriate models," Mullins said. "That's why eye donations are a precious resource -- we have to treat them in a responsible way and learn as much as we can from the samples. Our scientists share these valuable specimens to try to understand the biological causes of diseases like macular degeneration and glaucoma."
Nearby on the health campus, Rachel Asbury, a social worker with the Family Support Program at UI Hospitals and Clinics, may also receive a call at odd hours regarding organ and tissue donation. Asbury knows too well that the kindness of strangers is often rooted in tragedy, for example a fatal car accident. She is specially trained to help families through the difficult time and works with the Iowa Donor Network to offer the opportunity of donation. Her job meshes crisis intervention and advocacy for the grieving families.
Should a family choose to make a donation, Asbury works with the physicians and nurses to evaluate medical suitability and coordinates activities with the Iowa Lions Eye Bank. She also answers questions that donor families may have about how the tissue will be used. She said that "research" initially seems like an abstract term, but learning about UI scientists' work can be reassuring to a potential donor's relatives.
"We don't leave it at 'donate to research' and make that the end of the sentence," she said. "When I tell them it's for macular degeneration, families say, 'Oh, I think Aunt Beth had that.' Then it hits home."
Source: University Of Iowa
This is good news for patients with eye disorders, and University of Iowa physicians and scientists also laud Iowans' generosity. March is National Eye Donation Awareness Month and highlights the year-round efforts of UI experts and the Iowa Lions Eye Bank who work together to utilize the donated tissue.
"Iowa Lions Eye Bank facilitates the gift of sight through transplant and the gift of answers through research," said Katie Charter, director of donor development at the eye bank. "They are both equally important in sight restoration and preservation."
Only the cornea and sclera can be transplanted; the cornea is the clear dome, which covers the front of the eye, that helps focus light, and the sclera is the white fibrous tissue that protects the eye.
Surgeons perform about 40,000 cornea transplants each year in the United States. In 95 percent of cases, the procedure successfully restores a recipient's vision. The Iowa Lions Eye Bank, founded in 1955, has provided more than 15,000 corneas for transplantation, and helped the UI obtain the latest devices for these procedures.
Eye donations lead to additional opportunities for helping patients; scientists can use donated ocular tissue for research and teaching.
Other than a call from the eye bank to retrieve a sample, few other circumstances could rouse researchers in the UI Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences from their beds at 4 a.m. One such scientist is Robert Mullins, Ph.D., a UI associate professor. His team uses the donated tissue to study a potential cause of macular degeneration, a common eye disorder.
Seeking ways to diagnose and treat macular degeneration in its early stages, UI scientists have been awarded millions of dollars in NIH funding to study multiple facets of the disorder. Macular degeneration is largely responsible for blindness in the elderly population in industrialized countries. It affects one in seven adults older than age 75, and is often known as age-related macular degeneration. The macula is part of the retina, the layer of the eye that contains photoreceptor cells. When cells in the macula get damaged, vision loss -- sometimes severe -- can result.
At his lab in the UI Carver Family Center for Macular Degeneration, Mullins and his team explore how the blanket of blood vessels nourishing the retina has a role in disease development.
However, Mullins said researchers face one major hurdle. With the exception of primates, the animal models available do not have maculas. For his research findings to eventually reach clinical practice, Mullins relies on donated human eye tissue. His colleagues and team members are on call at all times, ready to whisk a sample to the lab to make sure the cells do not start to break down.
"The field suffered a lot from the lack of appropriate models," Mullins said. "That's why eye donations are a precious resource -- we have to treat them in a responsible way and learn as much as we can from the samples. Our scientists share these valuable specimens to try to understand the biological causes of diseases like macular degeneration and glaucoma."
Nearby on the health campus, Rachel Asbury, a social worker with the Family Support Program at UI Hospitals and Clinics, may also receive a call at odd hours regarding organ and tissue donation. Asbury knows too well that the kindness of strangers is often rooted in tragedy, for example a fatal car accident. She is specially trained to help families through the difficult time and works with the Iowa Donor Network to offer the opportunity of donation. Her job meshes crisis intervention and advocacy for the grieving families.
Should a family choose to make a donation, Asbury works with the physicians and nurses to evaluate medical suitability and coordinates activities with the Iowa Lions Eye Bank. She also answers questions that donor families may have about how the tissue will be used. She said that "research" initially seems like an abstract term, but learning about UI scientists' work can be reassuring to a potential donor's relatives.
"We don't leave it at 'donate to research' and make that the end of the sentence," she said. "When I tell them it's for macular degeneration, families say, 'Oh, I think Aunt Beth had that.' Then it hits home."
Source: University Of Iowa
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Have Your Glasses Fit Your Personality
Have Your Glasses Fit Your Personality
by Amanda Somrekli
Reading glasses have come a long way since today’s senior citizens started using them. Seniors are accustomed to buying bland styles of reading glasses at drug stores. But Baby Boomers have embraced readers in a way that could never have been anticipated. Boomers view them not simply as a vision aid but as items that help make fashion statements.
There is also an amazing variety of colors to choose from; elegant black to modern tortoise. You could of course try something new and go for a dash of bright green or purple. Some of the styles for full frames says it all; Bada Bing, Clark Kent, Geek or Depth Charger.
You may have noticed that people have second thoughts about approaching you, even though your closest friends swear that you have the most congenial personality.
There are also several age related eye diseases that can occur over 40. Most serious eye diseases are painless, and show no symptoms for years. Only a qualified professional can detect and diagnose them before they cause permanent damage.
For a man, a square face conveys undeniable strength, such as the face of Bruce Willis. For a woman, the square shape has led to many agonizing minutes of using makeup to soften the overall countenance.
But some women, like Jamie Lee Curtis, appear comfortable with their square faces. The secret is around the eyes. With the right reading glasses or sunreaders, a woman does need to not worry much about makeup.
Macular Degeneration results in the loss of sharp vision. The macula is the part of your eye that is responsible for sharp focus, and bringing things clearly into view. The cause of this condition is still unknown, and it generally affects people over 60. Like all other parts of your body, your eyes respond favorably to great nutrition and exercise.
With the huge variety of colors, shapes and materials available today your first shopping experience can be overwhelming. However, if you follow a few simple suggestions you should have no problem finding something just right.
Some signs of Presbyopia include needing to hold reading materials at arm’s distance, blurry vision in low light, and eye fatigue or headaches when working up close.
Using this method you will take the mystery out of, and make selecting your next pair of eyeglass or reading glasses frames much more fun.
by Amanda Somrekli
Reading glasses have come a long way since today’s senior citizens started using them. Seniors are accustomed to buying bland styles of reading glasses at drug stores. But Baby Boomers have embraced readers in a way that could never have been anticipated. Boomers view them not simply as a vision aid but as items that help make fashion statements.
There is also an amazing variety of colors to choose from; elegant black to modern tortoise. You could of course try something new and go for a dash of bright green or purple. Some of the styles for full frames says it all; Bada Bing, Clark Kent, Geek or Depth Charger.
You may have noticed that people have second thoughts about approaching you, even though your closest friends swear that you have the most congenial personality.
There are also several age related eye diseases that can occur over 40. Most serious eye diseases are painless, and show no symptoms for years. Only a qualified professional can detect and diagnose them before they cause permanent damage.
For a man, a square face conveys undeniable strength, such as the face of Bruce Willis. For a woman, the square shape has led to many agonizing minutes of using makeup to soften the overall countenance.
But some women, like Jamie Lee Curtis, appear comfortable with their square faces. The secret is around the eyes. With the right reading glasses or sunreaders, a woman does need to not worry much about makeup.
Macular Degeneration results in the loss of sharp vision. The macula is the part of your eye that is responsible for sharp focus, and bringing things clearly into view. The cause of this condition is still unknown, and it generally affects people over 60. Like all other parts of your body, your eyes respond favorably to great nutrition and exercise.
With the huge variety of colors, shapes and materials available today your first shopping experience can be overwhelming. However, if you follow a few simple suggestions you should have no problem finding something just right.
Some signs of Presbyopia include needing to hold reading materials at arm’s distance, blurry vision in low light, and eye fatigue or headaches when working up close.
Using this method you will take the mystery out of, and make selecting your next pair of eyeglass or reading glasses frames much more fun.
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