Macular Degeneration and Alz

M5M

Took DH to specialist today to check on his macular degeneration, he is several years into it. Doctor was concerned about increasing blurriness in DH's vision, checking for stroke and considering other tests and reasons. I mentioned to doctor the Alz was progressing, doctor had forgotten that and said, "Oh, that explains it." Anyway, I'm looking for some more information about the relationship between the two conditions, does the macular deg. progress along with Alz? Any insights as to how his vision might fare long term? He can't see well at all, has basically no peripheral vision in either eye.....What does he see through the blurriness?

harshedbuzz

@M5M

I am not a doctor, but to my knowledge Alz and AMD aren't related. Both are progressive conditions.

Both my parents have/had AMD. Dad also had mixed dementia (Alz and WKS). Dad's AMD was fairly mild, per his retina specialist, but a lot of his vision issues were related to the dysfunctional visual processing of his compromised brain. His depth perception was already bad after losing most of the vision in his left eye after a detached retina which he did not notice. The dementia progression caused a loss of peripheral vision and very poor spatial reasoning. Dad also interpreted changes of flooring as edges of a drop or hole.

Classically, AMD causes blacked out areas that grow over time in the central field of vision. This impacts things like reading and recognizing faces. I see this when my mom does a vision test-- she can only reliably read the left edge of the chart on her left eye.

As my dad progressed to the late middle stages, we ceased appointments with the retina specialist for him. He already was compromised by the dementia vision issues, found the appointments difficult to endure and the doctors had nothing to offer in the way of treatment so it didn't make sense to continue for him. It's different if he has wet AMD or, since newly approved meds, if he has moderate to severe geographic atrophy. That said, there's another poster here whose mom is currently struggling with the injection process.

HB

Quilting brings calm

== That said, there's another poster here whose mom is currently struggling with the injection process.==

That would be me. She jumped during the injection at both of the first two appointments. She doesn’t remember doing so ( of course). The doctor said he couldn’t give her the shots if she continued that. So her PCP prescribed Valium for the day of the next shot. It worked, sort of. She didn’t jump and the doctor was happy. Of course she was so out of it that a brass band could have walked by and she wouldn’t have noticed.