Does macular degeneration cause total blindness?
No. Macular degeneration normally affects only your central vision, not your peripheral vision. This means that it usually doesn’t cause total blindness. Because the central vision is affected, however, you may eventually experience difficulty with activities such as reading, driving, and recognizing people’s faces. This can greatly affect your quality of life. How many people are affected by macular degeneration? Macular degeneration is an age-related eye disease that currently affects as many as 15 million Americans. As the population ages, there has been an escalation in the number of people suffering from the disease. That’s why it’s important to know about prevention, detection, and treatment so that the effects of the disease can be minimized. Are there different forms of AMD? Yes, there are two forms of macular degeneration: Dry AMD and Wet AMD. Nearly 90 percent of patients suffering from AMD have dry AMD. With dry AMD, yellow-white deposits called drusen accumulate in the deep