B Thompson¹, B P Rosenthal²
¹Macular Disease Society, N/A, Scarborough, United Kingdom; ²Lighthouse International, Low Vision, New York, NY, United States
Background:
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which is the leading cause of legal blindness in the western world in people over the age of 50, is estimated to affect 25-30 million people. It is becoming more important to identify those individuals with high risk characteristics in AMD to make them aware of the medical treatment as well as preventative therapy to lessen the serverity of the condition.
Methods:
A study of 7830 adults over the age of 18 in North America (USA and Canada) and Europe (Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain) was undertaken to assess the public's awareness of macular degeneration. A questionnaire was designed by Ketchum Research and Measurement Department (New York, NY USA). Selection was random and data was collected by telephone interview. Interviews were weighted to known proportions of age, sex, geographic region, and race.
Results:
7830 adults participated in the survey. The mean age of the European countries was 45 while the mean age for the North American Participants was 44 years. 73% of the USA participants had their eye examined at least once every two years while only 44-59% of the Europeans had their eye examined once every two years. Of the participants surveyed 39% believed that aging was the main cause of severe vision loss among adults and 10% thought that glaucoma was the main cause of the sight loss. Over 80% of those interviewed were either not to familiar or not at all familiar with AMD. 27% of the respondents from the US however were somewhat familiar with AMD.
Conclusion: The majority of respondents (over 70%) were not familiar with AMD. It is more startling that 98% were not aware that AMD is the leading cause of vision loss in adults over the age of 50. It is felt that educational initiatives may prompt individuals to have more frequent eye examinations. This would improve detection of the early signs of AMD.
Return to the ISLRR.ORG Home Page
