Teaching point: For patients with chronic ocular conditions, patient re-education is key. ____’s condition is consistent with wet macular degeneration. Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the primary cause of legal blindness in North Americans 65 years of age or older. AMD is divided into two types: dry (also known as “nonexudative” or “non-neovascular”) and wet (also called “exudative” or “neovascular”).…
Marla Runyan: A Visually Impaired Athlete Marla Runyan is a world-class track and field athlete, who competed for the United States Olympic Team in 2000. She also happens to have Stargardt’s disease, which makes her legally blind. Marla once said, “If I break a national record, maybe they will stop writing about my eyes” (LaFontaine 228).…
This gene is responsible for limiting the production of melanin resulting in a derivation in iris pigmentation from the brown origin. According to research done at the University of Copenhagen, albinism is the result of a mutated OCA2 gene which leads to a lack of melanin based pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes (Troelsen, 2008). Statistically, the OCA2 1/1 homozygote diplotype is found at 65% frequency in blue-eyed individuals vs. only 9.5% of the brown-eyed individuals (Duffy, 2006). Similar to the way increased melanin in skin helps protect against harmful UV light, increased melanin in the iris protects against UV light, and decreases exposure sensitivity (Duffy, 2006). The lack of melanin in the iris results in blue pigmentation, which is most common in northern Europe (Duffy,…
Collagen in the Eyes The sclera of the eye, which is the white part, is made entirely of collagen. The cornea, which is the clear covering of your eyes, is mostly collagen. Therefore, if the collagen in your body is compromised…
We have a few different insights to why and where the disease may start in a person. It normally starts in a person when their autoimmune system begins to attack the melanocytes in the body. Also, it can derive from heredity from generations of their family or parents having it. Previously, vitiligo susceptibility genes were mainly revealed through linkage analysis and candidate gene studies (1). There are as well a few other factors that…
For obvious reasons, the eye is an extremely important and essential part of our bodies. It is not something that can be regenerated if something happens to the first pair, so we need to be extremely careful to take care of and protect our eyes as much as we can. There are many ocular dangers that can occur from tanning beds, and currently not enough exposure about them. More should be done to let people know of the dangers and encourage them to protect their eyes. The purpose is not to take away from the seriousness of skin cancers caused by tanning beds, but rather to show that there are more risks to be aware of than just within the…
REFERENCES 1. B. H. R. Taylor and J. E. Keeffe (2001) World blindness: A 21st century perspective. Br. J. Ophthalmol 85:261–266.…
Introduction The purpose of this study is to learn how to access and analyze cross-sectional descriptive epidemiology data, create 2 by 2 table for six exposures, compute odds ratio and 95% CI, interpret the findings, and write a report. In 2014, nearly 29.1 million people of all ages in the United States have diabetes, 21 million people have been diagnosed and 8.1 million people are undiagnosed. Men have the higher rate with 13.6 percent and11.2 percent for women. Americans Indians/ Alaska natives have the highest rate with 15.9 percent follow by Africans Americans, Hispanics (12.8%), Asian Americans (9%), and whites (7.6%).…
Diabetic retinopathy is an major cause of blindness, and occurs as a result of long-term accumulated damage to the small blood vessels in the retina (American). One percent of global blindness can be attributed to DM and it is also one of the leading causes of kidney failure (Diabetes). The overall risk of dying among people with DM is at least double the risk of people without it…
Researchers have shown that people who exercise would have a less chance of damaging their vision. One example of eye damage is called glaucoma. Glaucoma is a disease which blinds people and usually starts occurring at the age of 40. So far there aren’t any cures for this, but there is treatment that can slow down the process of one becoming blind. Certain types of lifestyles that can affect eye pressure, which is a factor towards the disease.…
Some of the tremendous impacts of technology towards healthcare are manifested in eye care, such as the contact lenses and eye laser…
Discussion Why is independent prescribing important? In my own opinion, I feel that independent prescribing is important to the society, as it does not take up medical professional skills and their valuable time. Independent prescribing over time will help to take pressure of the health system as well as the workload. It also ensures there are a reduction in the “unnecessary A and E and hospital admissions”, suggested by Royal College of nursing 2012.…
Imagine milking a cow while having blurry vision. Where is the pail? Did you miss it or kick it over? Now imagine working on a farm and living your life with blurry vision and no hope for change. This past summer, I had the opportunity to visit Romania and join an optometry team in various pop-up optometry clinics in two different villages.…
ABSTRACT Diabetic retinopathy (DR) remains a major complication of diabetes and the leading cause of blindness among adults worldwide. DR is a progressive disease affecting both type I and type II diabetic patients at any stage of the disease, and targets the macrovascular and microvascular systems of the retina. DR results from multiple biochemical, molecular and pathophysiological changes to the retinal vasculature which affect both microcirculatory functions and ultimately photoreceptor function. Several neural, endothelial and support cell (pericytes, glia) mechanisms are altered in a pathological fashion in the hyperglycemic environment during diabetes which can disturb important cell surface components in the vasculature producing…
“Robert Randall was diagnosed with severe glaucoma at age 24 and was expected to become totally blind long before he turned 30” (Russo, et al. 4). “His own journey commenced when he independently discovered that smoking a certain amount of cannabis eliminated the annoying visual haloes produced by his glaucoma” and “through painstaking documentation and experimentation, Randall subsequently confirmed the inability of medical science to control his intraocular pressure (IOP) by any legal pharmaceutical means,” which led to Randall obtaining “his first government supplied cannabis in November, 1976” (Russo, et al.…