Eye disease among ambulatory Jewish senior citizens in California

Knowledge of the epidemiology of eye disease among the elderly becomes increasingly important as our population ages. Leading causes of blindness in the elderly include age-related macular degeneration, open-angle glaucoma and cataract. Few studies have examined the prevalence of these blinding eye diseases among senior citizens. A retrospective review of vision screening examinations from 429 patients seen at the UCLA Mobile Eye Clinic in visits to a Jewish senior citizens' center was performed to examine the distribution of best recorded visual acuity and prevalence of eye disease in a group of ambulatory Jewish senior citizens. Best recorded visual acuity was > or = 20/40 in the better eye for 83.9% of the patients. The prevalence of age-related macular degeneration was 20.7%, and increased with increasing age (p < .00005). The prevalence of open-angle glaucoma was 6.3%. The prevalence of senile cataract was 59.0% and increased with increasing age (p < .00005). Despite the limitations imposed by a retrospective review of charts, our study provides an indication of the prevalence of blinding eye disease and distribution of visual acuity among ambulatory Jewish senior citizens in southern California. Except for the high prevalence of senile cataract, the prevalence data derived from this study are similar to other epidemiologic studies of eye disease in the elderly.