This degenerative visual condition usually affects the elderly, although some patients are genetically disposed to it as well. The macula, located in the central portion of the retina, is where detail vision is located. When the macula changes, resulting in bleeding, weaknesses or wasting, degeneration of the macula is the resulting medical condition. It often leaves patients with reduced central vision, and thus often means a reduction in the types of activities that rely on that type of specific detail vision, such as reading or driving.
Thus, patients with this type of visual degeneration are on the lookout for macular generation devices that will improve their existing vision. Low vision can sometimes be improved by using these aids, and can sometimes make possible the activities everyone appreciates, like reading and playing cards.
bifocal reading glasses can offer an easy solution to reduced vision. Simple to use, you wear the glasses and can change your field of vision by looking through a different part of the lens. Thus, you can see items both far away and close up, and you get to choose the vision length depending on your immediate viewing needs by using bifocal reading glasses.
Eye glass lenses can also be outfitted with miniature telescopes as well. Functioning a bit like the bifocal, the telescopes can be placed either on top of or behind the eye glass lens, and the patient can look through the regular lens to get the benefits of the eye glass prescription. The other choice is to look through the telescopic lens when you need ultra magnification in order to do detail type work such as reading or sewing.
For those wishing to use the computer, there are special monitors which will magnify the font size, making it easier for low vision users to work on the computer. There are also software macular degeneration devices that will take sound and convert it to text, so that you can speak into the computer's microphone and that sound will result in text on the screen. Other programs take text and turn it into braille documents, so that those with no vision can still participate in an online setting.
Other macular degeneration devices that patients sometimes find effective are closed circuit televisions. You take a book, open it, and then place it under a camera, which then projects the image in a larger font and shows it on the television screen, making it bigger and thus easier to read.
Whether you want to read or use the computer, there are macular degeneration devices that are suited to many specific visual tasks that you might want to explore if you have low vision.