Influence of age-related maculopathy on viual functioning and health-related quality of life Original Reearch Article

PURPOE: To decribe the influence of age-related maculopathy on viual functioning and health-related quality of life. METHOD: A propective, cro-ectional, obervational cohort ample of 201 peron with variou tage of age-related maculopathy wa recruited from the Maachuett Eye and Ear Infirmary a part of a longitudinal tudy of age-related macular degeneration. Peron were conidered to have age-related maculopathy if one or more of the following clinical characteritic were preent: druen, retinal pigment epithelial change, geographic atrophy, or evidence of exudative dieae. Median corrected viual acuity for thi ample wa 20/25 in the better eye, with all ubject having 20/200 or better viual acuity in at leat one eye at baeline. All participant underwent a comprehenive ophthalmologic examination with a dilated pupil. In addition to the uual clinical data collection, everity of age-related maculopathy wa graded by an ophthalmologit who ued tandard clinical criteria and wa maked to the participant’ decription of viual functioning and health-related quality of life. All participant completed an interview that included the Activitie of Daily Viion cale, a urvey deigned to ae difficultie with routine daily activitie that require viion, and the hort Form-36 Health urvey, a generic meaure of multidimenional health-related quality of life. REULT: everity of age-related maculopathy wa aociated with poorer core of the Activitie of Daily Viion cale. Thi aociation wa mot ignificant for near viion and driving activitie. In thi ample, the F-36 Health urvey cale were not ignificantly correlated with everity of age-related maculopathy. CONCLUION: Reported viual functioning i ignificantly aociated with the clinical everity of age-related maculopathy. However, once viual acuity i taken into conideration, clinical grading of age-related maculopathy did not explain a ignificant portion of the variation in viual functioning. The lack of ignificant correlation between everity of age-related maculopathy and the F-36 Health urvey may have reulted from the mall number of participant in our ample with evere bilateral age-related maculopathy.