Lenses to the rescue for degeneration

Dear Dr. Roach: I have an elderly friend who’s becoming blind from macular degeneration.

After hearing of a particularly frustrating event she experienced due to vision loss, I remembered the great clarity that the yellow-lens (to reduce glare) glasses gave me, not just at night, but daytime also.

So, I sent her a pair to see if it would help, as a lastditch effort. She called me crying, it had made such a difference! She has now had her prescription eyeglasses done with the yellow (bluecanceling?) lenses.

Of course, we understand that this is just a temporary help, and won’t prevent the blindness from taking its course, but it has given her much better vision for a time. — I.L.B.

Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss in industrialized countries. It is a degeneration of the central part of the retina, called the macula, which is responsible for fine detail central vision. The underlying cause is not precisely known, and the course is progressive.

I was able to find a 2002 study that confirmed that yellow or orange lenses improved contrast sensitivity in people with early age-related macular degeneration, whereas red and gray lenses worsened it.

Another study suggested that the perceived benefit (the subjective experience by the person) was enhanced, but that objective improvement in vision was not actually improved much at all.

In my opinion, perceived benefit is still worth a great deal, and since there is little effective treatment for the more common “dry” form of ARMD beyond vitamins and smoking cessation, I am publishing your letter in hopes that some people will get improvements in their vision, as your friend did, from this low-cost treatment with essentially no risk of side effects.