Your retina contains an extraordinary photosensitive array of cells that line the back of your eye. The light falling onto these cells in the retina is transformed into electrical signals which are transmitted to the brain centers that process and interpret them. The most concentrated collection of photosensitive cells in your retina, including those that enable critical color and fine detail vision, are found in the Bulls-Eye center zone in an area called the macula. Macular degeneration is the imprecise historical name given to that group of diseases that causes sight-sensing cells in the macular zone of the retina to malfunction or lose function and results in debilitating loss of vital central or detail vision. Because the brain cleverly learns to compensate and fill in the missing part of the picture in early cases with spotty macular cell damage or dysfunction, most people only present to their ophthalmologist when disease is fairly advanced.
Macular degeneration can cause different symptoms in different people.
Sometimes only one eye loses vision while the other eye continues to see well for many years. The condition may be hardly noticeable in its early stages. But when both eyes are affected, reading and close up work can become difficult. If you have been diagnosed with adult macular degeneration you are in good company. Another case of adult macular degeneration is diagnosed every three minutes in the United States of America.