Age Related Macular Degerneration

The Macular is the area at the back of your eye that is used for seeing close work and fine details such as reading a book.  The macular is the central part of our vision and it is one of the most fundamental parts in the eye. 

Macular Degeneration is a term given to a disease where the macula at the back of the eye is damaged due to cell death.  This is likely to make it harder for patients to see fine details in both near and distance vision.  However, your periphery vision is usually still intact (depending on where the cell damage had occurred). 

There are two types of Macular Degeneration, Wet and Dry.  Dry AMD is where due to cell damage, yellow deposits, known as Drusen, build up behind the Macula.  Over time, these can cause distortion within the central part of your vision and in early AMD it is hard to detect these distortions as the unaffected eye may compensate.  Wet AMD occurs when abnormal blood vessels begin to grow around the macula and eventually leak fluid/blood.  Due to the build up of fluid, the Macula is pushed away from its blood supply at the back of the eye and this will lead to a rapid loss in vision. 

Although there is no known cure for Macular Degeneration, West Malling Opticians is now offering E-Scoop® lens for suffers of AMD.  After more than 20 years development by Frans Oosterhof, the E-Scoop® lens aims to achieve better vision by shifting the image from the central part of the macular, where most of the damage occurs, to the periphery of the macular, where the damage is usually less severe.

How does it work?

With a healthy eye, light will pass and enter through the central part of the retina, the macular and due to the high concentration of the cones in this area, it presents sharp and clear vision.  However, in suffers of Macular degeneration, these cones have lost there function due to the damage to the macular and as the disease progresses, patients will complaint of grey black spots in their central vision.  As the periphery vision is less effected, the E-Scoop® lens shifts the image from the centre of the macular to the periphery, where the cone damage is less severe.  Even though the image is shifted, the quality of sharpness is still compromised but may be a vast improvement compared to looking through the centre of the macular.

The results of how effective the E-Scoop® lens will be, will vary between patients due to the damage and the severity and progression of the damage. 

So in simpler terms, the E- Scoop philosophy focuses on using another part of the macular to improve vision.  This lens has 5 main elements to achieve its goal of improving vision by shifting the image, which are:

•  Colour – The yellow tint helps to reduce the impact daylight and UV light will have on the eye.  This makes the experience of vision more comfortable for the patient.                                                                           
•  Coating – the coating offered on this lens is a high quality anti reflection lens that again adds protection as well as comfort when exposed to bright lights. 
•  Thickness and Curve – by adding thickness to the lens, it allows us to enlarge the image which allows more details
•  Prism -  Induced prism is one the primary function of the lens as it will redirect the light path to the outer part of the macular

Thousands of patients are using the E-Scoop® glasses comfortably which has proven that with this technology poor vision can be significantly improved.  One of the biggest achievements we have seen is that E-Scoop® glasses can help our patients to better recognize people, read better, gain independence, enjoy sunny days and reduce eye strain. 

As each individual patient is likely to have different results, we recommend that you come into the practice and allow us to demonstrate the E-Scoop® lens to see the benefit for you.