Eye Conditions
About 65,000 Irish adults and children are affected by retinal degenerative conditions, part of a world total of 40 million.
Not all of them are blind today but they know that their vision can only get worse, not better. The end result in many cases is complete blindness.
These conditions are often genetic, passing from generation to generation and affecting many members of a family. They can also occur sporadically in a family with no previous history at all.
Symptoms
Symptoms vary in each case, but in general people find their mobility increasingly restricted as they gradually lose their vision. Gaps in vision occur, making it difficult for the affected person to make sense of moving traffic, bicycles and other pedestrians.
Equally unsettling is night blindness, where the eyes struggle to adjust to rapid changes in lighting levels.
Glare can also be difficult. Something as simple as going from bright daylight indoors can leave someone disorientated because it can take a long time for the eyes to adjust. In some cases specially filtered sunglasses can reduce the severity of the glare.
(Eye photo: Peter Harnett)
In this section:
The most common types of retinal degenerative conditions which Fighting Blindness is working to cure are:
Also in this section: