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As U.S. Population Ages, Eye Disease More Prevalent Reuters, Yahoonews, September 8, 2003 CHICAGO
(Reuters) - A nine-year study of the U.S. elderly showed nearly half
develop at least one of three chronic eye diseases as they age,
researchers said on Monday. The
prevalence of eye diseases was higher than in previous studies, and will
rise as the U.S. population age 65 and older increases from 34 million in
2000 to 70 million in 2030, said Frank Sloan of Duke University in Durham,
North Carolina. "As
more elderly individuals live longer, we may see a rise in the prevalence
of chronic eye diseases that will significantly challenge our ability to
provide care," Sloan wrote in the Archives of Ophthalmology, a
journal published by the American Medical Association. In
the 1991-1999 study of more than 10,000 Medicare beneficiaries 65 or
older, the prevalence of diabetic retinopathy, a deterioration of the
retina caused by diabetes, rose to 17 percent of participants from 7
percent; glaucoma increased to 14 percent from 5 percent; and the
incidence of age-related macular degeneration, which erases vision from
the center outwards, rose to 27 percent from 5 percent. "The
clinical diagnosis of major chronic eye diseases associated with aging
increased dramatically in (this) sample," the report said. "At
the end of nine years, nearly half of the surviving Medicare beneficiaries
had at least 1 of (the three diseases studied)." In
addition, 15 percent of the people studied did not get an eye exam,
increasing the chances of undiagnosed diseases. "The
continued aging of the baby boomer population will result in an even
greater burden of eye disease in the United States than previous
cross-sectional estimates indicated. This increased burden has important
implications for the nation's public health, for resource allocation, and
for the financing of vision care in the future," it said. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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