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Healthy Aging By Sharon Johnson Degenerative eye disease frustrates, but Helen copes It happened in a beauty shop. Helen Gregory realized there were dramatic changes taking place in her vision following a cut and curl. She picked up a magazine and the words were blurred, the colors looked dim. She went directly from the beauty shop to her ophthalmologist. When I met Helen, her reddish hair sprouting from a short-brimmed straw hat, she said, "Hello, my name is Helen. I am hard of seeing." This pretty, perky, red-haired, World War II army nurse has macular degeneration. It has reduced her vision dramatically, and it frustrates her enormously. Age-related macular degeneration causes loss of eyesight but rarely total blindness. It is defined as "a damage or breakdown in the light-sensing retina in the back of the eye," which we use for the sharp, direct vision required for reading or other fine-detail tasks. Most ophthalmologists (physicians specializing in diseases of the eye) will tell you that in order to see detail, you use the macula - the "bull's-eye" center of the retina. And it must be healthy to work properly. With macular degeneration, there is blurring, or spots, on your central vision. There may be distortion, which is not one of Helen's primary symptoms, but one that exists for others with this condition. Imagine looking at the face of a new friend and seeing it stretched so that an eye is where the mouth should be - or there is no mouth at all, just a blurry, distorted gray mass. I like to think of Helen as a new friend. She is the kind of strong, nonequivocating woman I admire. I have quickly learned that Helen has many friends, new and old, largely as the result of her long-held volunteer responsibilities with the Medford Tourist Bureau. She has been a volunteer there since its motto was "We hug visitors!" She still does, at times. Helen always will have friends. And she will always need coping strategies. With the help of one caring friend, she has acquired a television-like magnifier that she uses to write checks and read letters. (She refers to it as "Miss Clarity.") She has tried laser treatments, an option when you have "wet' macular degeneration," meaning abnormal blood vessels have formed in the back of the eye. She knows that zinc has been identified as having an impact on macular degeneration, so she takes it daily as an additive to her vitamin pill. She has been told that antioxidants are important, and she eats spinach and other dark green veggies. She takes beta-carotene with lutein, which some research suggests may have a measurable impact on visual loss. Visual loss touches all of us as we age. As it did with Helen, its arrival may come as a surprise, taxing our coping skills. It can frighten and frustrate, as well as challenge us - posing new opportunities and new friendships. I considered purchasing a gift for my new friend, a book. Actually, I do not need to purchase it, for the title says it all: "Growing Old is Not for Sissies." No sissy, this war veteran. Tough-spirited, clear thinking, occasionally a little feisty. Ageless. Sharon Johnson is an assistant professor in family and community development at OSU Extension and a member of the Senior Advisory Council. Reach her at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.