Australian icon Ita Buttrose has issued a passionate plea to senior Australians in a bid to avoid thousands of people going unnecessarily blind during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her message, issued as a community service announcement, is directed to Australia’s older and more vulnerable citizens, living with macular disease, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic eye disease.
She says she’s concerned many people who need urgent, sight-saving eye injections for diseases like wet (neovascular) age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema are not keeping their appointments with their eye health professionals because of fear and confusion around public health protocols.
You can watch the full video (above) and Macular Disease Foundation Australia encourages you to share this important announcement on social media, or via email, with your friends and family by sharing this post.
The early detection of any form of macular degeneration is crucial to saving sight. Difficulty with vision should never be dismissed as just part of getting older. In its early stages macular degeneration may not result in noticeable visual symptoms but it can be detected during an eye examination with your optometrist.
The earlier that macular degeneration is detected the earlier that steps can be undertaken to help slow its progression and preserve sight through treatment and lifestyle modifications.
