Blindness & Vision impairment

Blindness and vision impairment 

Blindness and vision impairment affect at least 2.2 billion people around the world. Of those, 1 billion have a preventable vision impairment or one that has yet to be addressed. 
Reduced or absent eyesight can have major and long-lasting effects on all aspects of life, including daily personal activities, interacting with the community, school and work opportunities and the ability to access public services.

Reduced eyesight can be caused by a number of factors, including disease like diabetes and trachoma, trauma to the eyes, age-related macular degeneration and cataracts.
The majority of people with vision impairment are over the age of 50 years, however, vision loss can affect people of all ages.
Blindness and vision loss are felt more acutely by people in low- and middle-income countries where accessibility and specific government services may be lacking.
In those countries, the most common cause of vision impairment in children is congenital cataract.

 

There are many factors due to vision may be impaired.
These could be due to eye damage, failure of the brain to receive and read the visual cues sent by the eyes etc.

Underlying diseases may also cause visual impairment.
The commonest cause is diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, formation of cataracts and raised pressure within the eyes leading to glaucoma.

Visual impairment & Blindness Treatment : 

Control of diabetes – This prevents progression of diabetic retinopathy and resulting visual impairment to some extent. However in advanced cases this may be of little help.

Cataract surgery – In cases of visual impairment due to cataracts, surgery may be opted. Usually an artificial lens is placed within the eye as a replacement of the damaged and clouded lens. This, more often than not restores vision.

Magnification systems – This is achieved using appropriate lens, reading telescopes or surgical systems etc. Hand magnifiers may also be offered. For improvement of visual fields prisms and mirror systems may be prescribed.

Glaucoma – medications in eye drops are prescribed to control glaucoma. These may contain drugs like Latanoprost, tafluprost, travoprost which are prostaglandin analogues.

The drugs may include Beta-blockers like betaxolol hydrochloride or carbonic anhydrase inhibitors dorzolamide and Sympathomimetics like brimonidine tartrate.

Glaucoma may also be managed surgically using open microscopic surgery, laser corrections, etc.

At present there are no cures for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) especially of the dry variety.

For the wet AMD there are therapies that help to stop the progression. These include Photodynamic therapy. This uses a light-sensitive medicine called verteporfin injected into a vein of the arm.

The drug identifies the abnormal blood vessels in the eyes and attaches itself to the proteins in these blood vessels. This is followed by a low-powered laser therapy.

Some new types of medications called Anti-VEGF medication may also be used. One example is Ranibizumab that has recently been approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for use on the NHS.