Visibility Vol 7 Issue 1, 2013

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of legal blindness among people over 50 in North America. AMD involves the degeneration of the macula, which is the central part of the retina responsible for high acuity vision. As the disease progresses, those with AMD are forced to rely on peripheral vision, which remains functional. Because of the loss of central vision, patients report difficulties in performing daily tasks such as reading, shopping, preparing meals, recognizing faces and navigating around their environment. Apart from reading, relatively few studies have investigated the impact of AMD on these daily tasks. The goal of the current research was to develop a systematic characterization of the limits of peripheral vision in a variety of daily visual tasks in patients with AMD, in comparison to an age-matched sample.