Geriatric Medicine

Answer 4 Macular degeneration. Macular degeneration accounts for the majority of cases of legal blindness (ie, vision uncorrectable to better than 20/200) after age 65 years. A small subset of patients with macular degeneration may benefit from intervention by an ophthalmologist; therefore, referral for slit lamp examination is advisable. Whereas diabetic and hypertensive retinopathy each cause more cases of legal blindness than does macular degeneration, sufficient numbers of patients with those disorders become legally blind before age 65 years to leave macular degeneration the most common cause in those losing vision after age 65 years. Cataracts and glaucoma are treatable conditions and thus cause relatively few cases of legal blindness. Click here to return to the questions

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