What every Canadian should know about the eye disease geographic atrophy

(NC) Have you heard of geographic atrophy (GA)? If you haven’t, and you’re a senior, or someone with seniors in your life, here’s what you need to know:

It’s an age-related disease. GA is a type of advanced dry macular degeneration – let’s break that down. The macula is the part of the retina at the back of your eye that lets you see directly ahead, and it can deteriorate with age. GA causes the cells of the macula to die off slowly, causing loss of central vision. The damage and vision loss build slowly, often over years, and can make things like driving, reading and even recognizing faces difficult.

It’s more common than you’d think. GA affects an estimated five million people worldwide, most of them seniors. The slow, irreversible vision loss that it causes can catch patients off-guard – after all, it’s easy to think “I’m just getting older” when it becomes harder to read. But it’s serious: GA can take away a person’s ability to live independently, especially if it isn’t caught early enough.

It’s detectable. Research into the cause of GA is still ongoing, but there have been strides made in detection and diagnosis. New imaging techniques are helping health-care professionals better track retina health and catch the signs sooner. If you detect any blind spots in the middle of your field of vision, reach out to your eye-care professional – don’t wait for the problem to get worse.

Learn more at livingwithga.ca.