Acute macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of vision loss for adults over age 60 in the U.S. Having AMD can make daily tasks that require sharp vision, such as driving, reading, and even recognizing faces difficult.

What happens in a healthy eye?

In a healthy eye, light travels through the pupil, is focused by the lens, and hits the retina at the back of your eye. Special cells in the retina detect the light and send signals through the optic nerve to the brain, where they are interpreted as an image. The light-sensing cells in the macula are responsible for sharp central vision.

What happens in AMD?

When the macula is damaged, vision becomes blurry, wavy, distorted, or dark. Over time, central vision may be lost entirely. Watch a one-minute video from the American Macular Degeneration (AMD) Foundation that AMD types and illustrates what a patient experiences in terms of vision loss.

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