Impact of peripheral optical errors in age-related macular degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a common ocular condition leading to reduced central visual function and increased dependency on the peripheral field of view for all visual tasks. This study aims to assess the effect of optical errors on peripheral vision in dry form AMD.

High contrast resolution acuity and contrast sensitivity were measured in the 20° nasal visual field of fourteen subjects with advanced or early dry AMD. The measurements were performed through an adaptive optics vision simulator to simulate average phakic as well as pseudophakic peripheral optical errors.

Overall, inducing population average phakic optical errors resulted in better peripheral visual function than average pseudophakic optical errors for all measured subjects, both in high contrast resolution acuity and contrast sensitivity. Specifically, the mean differences between phakic and pseudophakic conditions were 0.16 logMAR in resolution acuity and 0.43 in logarithmic contrast sensitivity. These changes are larger than the results of studies on younger subjects with healthy vision.

The study thereby concludes that reducing peripheral optical errors can improve peripheral vision, although further work is needed to determine how this translates to everyday visual performance. Interestingly, the improvement appears to be larger for AMD patients compared to healthy eyes.