so one of the most difficult parts about being an eye doctor is watching people go blind and
probably the number one eye condition that i personally fear getting the most is one called
age related macular degeneration and in this condition people lose their central visual acuity
so they keep a lot of their side vision but their center vision is gone so imagine looking at your
friends or your family and you can't recognize their faces either because it's too blurry
or it's just it's just gone it's just a black spot same thing if you're trying to watch a movie
or play a video game or read a book then you can't see or do that and sadly no at this time
glasses contacts even surgery nothing can repair or restore this type of vision loss
and that is exactly why early diagnosis of max degeneration is so important so that we can make
a diagnosis and begin treatment and lifestyle modification to hopefully delay or even prevent
future vision loss now a major thing about macular degeneration as with many eye diseases is that
most people don't realize that there's a problem with their vision until it's already too late
in fact about 80 percent of people with macular degeneration don't even seek care until they've
already had permanent damage to their vision but you see vision loss and blindness is not the first
symptom of macular degeneration in fact it's your loss of the ability to see in dim light or having
night blindness so let me know in the comments if you've ever had trouble seeing at night time
you feel like you're having more difficulties now these days because i swear i hear a lot of
people telling me here in the clinic that they're having a hard time seeing at night but now we have
this this is the adapt dx pro from Maculogix the AdaptDx pro is a portable vision test that
kind of looks like a virtual reality headset but it tests what is called dark adaptometry
which is the ability to kind of measure how quickly our eyes adjust from a dark room to
seeing subtle bright lights so imagine going from a really bright room to going into a dark room and
you know how it takes some time for your eyes to adjust it's kind of testing that time difference
there is a lot of science to it but what's exciting is that they have found that with these
tests they can detect macular degeneration up to three years before we ever see anything in the
back of the eye during an eye exam and i'm always personally really excited about new technology and
eye care so a huge shout out to Maculogix for sponsoring this video showcase it gives us a
chance to look at the Adapt Dx pro into figuring out how it works and then ultimately seeing how
eye care professionals can use this technology to help people diagnose and treat macular generation
earlier this is the newest model of the Adaptdx which comes with these rubberized eye cups which
block out and create kind of a light seal meaning you can do this test basically anywhere you want
because it's mobile it also comes with this cool lcd screen here on the front which is
used to show kind of instructions and help any sort of technicians who may be running the test
monitor the progress of the test itself the way the test works is you're shown a dark black screen
with a single red fixation target that you kind of focus on and then they shine a bright green square
that essentially kind of bleaches out your retinal photoreceptors and then they start showing you
very subtle incremental changes in light intensity just kind of a little flash right where that
green square was and then you click a button whenever you think that you saw that green flash
and with that they're able to map out how well your retina is able to adapt to these subtle
changes in light intensities now this class of technology of dark ad optometry and how it works
is not really new it's been around for a long time and i can even remember learning about it
in my vision science classes in optometry school but this is the first time that it's ever really
been made very user-friendly portable and ultimately just kind of this successful
with technology making it so that clinics can actually use it because before in the olden days
it's something that just took way too long to run and it was cumbersome and just it wasn't
really something that you could use outside of an academic setting now the Adaptdx pro
has two different testing functions one which is just a screener test which only takes about five
to seven minutes which is awesome because it can be run at any regularly scheduled
eye exam and if the patient passes that screener test awesome but if they fail then we know they're
at risk and we can have them back for a more extensive test which gives us more information
and hopefully will help us diagnose if there is a problem with macular degeneration now i even had
a chance to test it out myself and it was kind of fun to do and yes i did pass but while wearing it
you put it on and everything's super dark it's kind of like looking with a blindfold on you can't
see very much at all and then you have this voice that turns on and starts talking to you please
loosen the headset and reposition it so that the red light is directly across from your eye
that's Thea Thea is a multilingual AI that kind of coaches you and adapts to your performance during
the test and it's nice because at times in my eyes i wasn't blinking very much i was really focused
and my eyes were drying out it would remind me to hey let's take a break blink your eyes a few times
and then let's begin the test again and they also included some eye tracking technology so that if
you do turn your eye away from the fixation target then it's able to kind of notice that you're doing
that and adjust accordingly i think this was really smart to include in this technology
because if you've done any other tests in the eye clinic you can lose your confidence pretty
quickly whether you're missing letters or you're taking a visual field test and you miss a light
you lose that confidence and having this voice to kind of coach you through and encourage you
to keep going or to take a break that is it is useful it gives us better information improves our
confidence in the test results and overall i think it makes a better experience for the person taking
the test too but again with this test you see that red fixation light when you see any other flashing
lights you click a button and it gets recorded and after a few minutes you're all set and done
but again remember that this test measures your speed of dark adaption and in eye care
and all of healthcare it's really important that we have studies to back up of how this works
and a really good study done between Harvard, Penn state and John Hopkins found that the Adaptdx
did have a 90 specificity and sensitivity for detecting the presence of AMD
as an objective measurement of retinal function meaning with it we can diagnose max degeneration
earlier and then begin treatment and lifestyle modifications so that hopefully we can again slow
and even maybe delay vision loss and those recommendations can be quitting smoking
prescribing nutritional supplementation to help slow the disease it can include taking diet and
exercise programs and as well as managing other systemic diseases with a primary care physician
even prescribing blue light and UV light blocking sunglasses or other technology to help prevent any
sort of excess oxidative strain from exposure to sunlight and other harsh lights now Adaptdx has
been around since about 2014 and is becoming more widely available but i think if you're somebody
who has any risk factors you're over the age of 50 you either are or have been a smoker in the
past or you have any family history of blindness or macular degeneration then i would reach out
to your local eye care provider and find someone near you that has something like dark adaptometry
you of course can easily just call local clinics and see if somebody has something like the AdaptDx
or you can check out the link i'll include in the description below which will be a search engine
so you can find other clinics automatically that already have the device again huge thanks to
Maculogix for supporting this video and getting us a chance to get our hands on the Adaptdx pro
so we can try it out ourselves let us know in the comments what you think of this cool technology
and overall is macular degeneration a concern for you now again there's a whole lot more for us to
talk about when it comes to macular degeneration if you want to learn a little bit more and you
haven't seen on other videos unlike the difference between wet and dry macular degeneration
check out those videos by clicking or tapping the screen over here to the side or if again you
want to see other cool videos from Dr Eye health you can click or tap the screen down over here
again thank you so much for watching keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon