November 11, 2015
Diabetic Retinopathy
Diabetic eye disease is a group of eye conditions that can affect people who have diabetes. Diabetic retinopathy, diabetic macular edema, cataract, and glaucoma are some examples of diabetic eye diseases. Diabetic eye disease can affect the retina, macula, lens and the optic nerve. Diabetic retinopathy affects blood vessels in the retina. This disease is the number one cause of vision impairment among adults. “There are approximately 93 million people with diabetic retinopathy and 17 million with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (worldwide)” (American Diabetes Association, 2012).
What is the cause? It is caused by chronically high blood sugar which is associated with the destruction of the tiny blood vessels in the retina. The retina is responsible for detecting light and converting it to signals sent to the brain through the optic nerve. …show more content…
Who does it affect?
Diabetic Retinopathy affects people with all types of diabetes. Someone becomes more at risk the longer that they have diabetes. “After five years of taking insulin for type 1 diabetes, there is a 25 percent chance of developing diabetic retinopathy. For type 2 diabetes, that number increases to 40 percent for those who are on insulin and 24 percent for those who are not African American and Hispanic individuals are a greater risk (up to 50 percent more than other races) for developing diabetic retinopathy” (Goldstein, 2011).
Symptoms
In the early stages of this disease symptoms are not really apparent. People begin to notice the disease when their vision becomes affected. When one begins to bleed from the blood vessels in the retina this can cause them to see floating spots. As the disease progresses more symptoms occur. Symptoms include spots/dark strings, blurred vision, impaired color vision, dark vision, vision loss and fluctuating vision.
Figure