Different Types Of Eye Degeneration

Eye degeneration can be easily detected by your health care professional or an ophthalmologist with the help of a complete and specific eye examination which will include reviewing the patient and their family's medical records, as well as conducting many tests. Here are some of the more common tests used to determine eye degeneration.

Measurement Of Visual Acuity

The primary function of this test is to measure your central vision, and its ability to differentiate between different details and shapes. In this test, you are generally told to view and read a chart just like an ordinary eye exam, in order to determine how well you can see things which are at various distances.

Ophthalmoscopy

When you go in for this test, your health care professional will put some drops into your eyes in order to dilate or widen your pupils, and will check the same using an instrument which allows him to see the inside of your eye and take a peek at your pupil and around the retina closely. After this test, your near sight can appear blurred for a few hours until the effect of the drops used to dilate your pupils wears off.

With this test, your health care professional can check for minute, yellow-colored deposits found in your retina, which are called drusen. The presence of drusen in your retina area could be an early signal of dry eye syndrome or a dry macular condition. Drusen are generally made up of degenerative substances excreted by the light-sensitive cells of our retina. These deposits are widely believed to interfere with our macula's functioning, and could be a leading possible cause for its degeneration. However, the presence of drusen in our eye can be without loss of vision. If drusen are found by your health care professional, that in itself does not indicate that you are suffering from macular degeneration. It just means that your eye could be at risk in developing this disease at a later point in time.

Amsler Grid

When you go in for this test, you have to look at a grid which is a bit similar to graph paper in that there is a series of horizontal and vertical lines which are intersecting with each other at regular intervals. What you have to do is cover one of your eyes and look at the grid with your other eye and stare at a black dot which is placed bang in the middle of the grid. At any point in time, if you find the straight lines appearing wavy to you, and/or you find that a few of the lines are missing, this may be construed as a symptom of dry macular or AMD, common eye degeneration diseases.

Fluorescein Angiography

Here, a dye which is injected into your arm is allowed to travel to your retinal area. With the help of a special camera, pictures are then taken of your retinal area when this dye passes through it. This technique allows your health care professional to map the flow of blood in the eye, and also helps to determine if there is any unnatural leakage or change in the retinal area.

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