We occasionally get questions from users of the ForeseeHome AMD Monitoring Program: “Why am I using this device? Why did my doctor want me to test with ForeseeHome?” This is the first of four newsletters explaining why it is important to monitor your vision with the ForeseeHome AMD Monitoring Program.
With modern treatments for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the single most important factor determining your vision (visual acuity) long-term after treatment is the visual acuity at the start of treatment. When we first started these treatments years ago, we discovered that most patients would have a slight improvement in visual acuity after a certain number of treatments. However, if the vision is very poor at the start of treatment very few, if any, of these patients will recover good, or functional, vision in that eye. Functional vision allows us to read, see labels, drive, and see grandchildren’s faces. The reasons that those with poor vision at the start of treatment continued to have poor vision after treatment were complex and not fully understood. However, we now have data from multiple studies over time that explain.
The National Eye Institute (NEI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) performed key studies going back to 1988 that show that some categories of dry AMD are more likely than others to change to the wet form of AMD. Thus, it is important if your doctor has determined that your eye fits into one of those categories of dry AMD and is at risk of changing (what we call conversion) to the wet form, that you monitor your vision to help your doctor detect that change early should one occur. Early detection of conversion can lead to early treatment, and early treatment while the visual acuity is good, can lead to preservation of functional vision.
Your eye care physician makes the determination as to how you should monitor your vision. He or she has determined that the ForeseeHome AMD Monitoring Program is to be part of your care plan. In the next newsletters we will go through the benefit of ForeseeeHome monitoring in helping preserve functional vision.
