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A New Tool to Help Care for Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

Davis Duehr Dean continues to improve the detection of harmful changes in patients with age-related macular degeneration

If there was a device that improved early detection of the most aggressive form of age-related macular degeneration, wouldn’t you want your eye care professional to have it?

Davis Duehr Dean- Portage and Montello have a diagnostic device called the Foresee PHP™ (Preferential Hyperacuity Perimeter) in their practice which does just that – bringing increased hope to patients with AMD, a leading cause of blindness worldwide.

To understand the significance of this early detection device, it is important to first understand how AMD progresses and how it is currently monitored. There are two stages of AMD: dry AMD and wet AMD. When dry AMD converts to wet AMD sight becomes threatened and can deteriorate quickly. Patients with a certain type of dry AMD (intermediate) are at much higher risk of changing from dry to wet AMD. As new drug therapies show great promise in preventing vision loss in wet AMD, it has become imperative to detect this conversion from dry to wet AMD earlier.

“Clinical trials as well as our experience show that a large percentage of AMD patients have already suffered vision loss at the time of their diagnosis. We believe that a program with increased emphasis on patient education and more frequent testing of patients at risk combined with the Foresee PHP will result in earlier detection of wet AMD in more patients and thereby better visual results of treatment.” said Stephen Sramek MD, PhD-Retinal Specialist and Medical Director of Dean/ St. Mary’s Regional Eye Network.

Early detection and new treatments symbolize hope to the roughly eight million Americans that already have intermediate AMD and are at risk of developing wet AMD.

The standard practice of patient self-monitoring uses a sheet of paper with a series of straight grid lines on it called the Amsler grid. When the lines of the grid appear curved, the disease maybe changing from dry to wet AMD. However, just as the brain compensates so people don’t notice their blind spot, it also compensates for what the eye actually sees when looking at the grid. By the time the lines appear curved, the area of leakage has most likely spread and vision loss may have already occurred.

“The Foresee PHP™ is one of the most important new office diagnostic devices we have at our disposal,” said Robert Castrovinci, MD at Davis Duehr Dean in Portage and Montello.
“It has been clinically proven to detect conversion to wet AMD early and with high accuracy.
By using the Foresee PHP, ™ eye care specialists will have an opportunity to play a vital role in substantially reducing the number of patients who are victims of AMD, the world’s leading cause of blindness.”

If you have AMD, know which form you have. Then review the risk factors and protective factors with your eye care provider. Davis Duehr Dean recommends at-risk patients with intermediate, dry AMD have this simple diagnostic test performed three to four times each year. To schedule an appointment at Davis Duehr Dean-Portage, call 742-5522 or Davis Duehr Dean-Montello, call 297-2501 or visit the website at deancare.com/ddd.