06/26/2023

More People Are Going Blind

AI can help fight this

Since 2017, ophthalmology has been the busiest of all the medical specialties in the United Kingdom's (UK) National Health Service in terms of clinical appointments. Nearly 10 percent of all NHS outpatient appointments are related to eye problems. That’s nearly 10 million appointments per year, and that number has risen by more than a third in the past five years.

Between the ages of 18 and 65, the main cause of blindness is diabetic eye disease. But the population is getting older, and we’re also seeing an increasing prevalence of diseases like age-related macular degeneration (AMD). That's the most common cause of blindness. A recent study in the British Journal of Ophthalmology estimated that 25.3 percent of people in Europe who are above the age of 60 have early signs of AMD. In the UK, about 200 people a day are also developing a severe form of AMD, called wet AMD, which causes blindness as a result of bleeding at the back of the eye.

Ophthalmologists are struggling to see and treat all these patients. Unfortunately, that means that many are going blind because of delays in diagnosis and treatment. All the evidence suggests that early detection and treatment equals safe sight.

Please select this link to read the complete article from WIRED.