REPORTING. AMD: an application allows “ultra-early treatment” of this retinal disease

“If you see anomalies, distorted lines, spots, draw them”, indicates the female voice of the OdySight application, dedicated to people with AMD, age-related macular degeneration that mainly affects people over 75 years old. At an advanced stage, this disease of the retina can make you partially blind, so to prevent any aggravation, patients at the ophthalmological center in Alès (Gard) monitor themselves using these screen tests.

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Patients have been using the app for eight months and according to the centre’s director, Natacha Zanatta, this follow-up has paid off: “We have improved the follow-up, that’s undeniable. We had perhaps six or eight reports which actually corresponded to care that was needed quickly. Loss of field of vision, for example, new points of loss that appear and that the application records. The patient in general, he does not realize it himself. It is the application that will detect it before the patient.”

“The patient would have contacted us only if he noticed a loss of vision, a long time later. There, we are really on an ultra-early care”.

Natacha Zanatta, director of the Alès ophthalmology center

at franceinfo

Delphine Zutton has just turned 52 and she discovered somewhat by chance that she suffered from AMD. This pathology is rather rare at his age. To prevent her case from getting worse, she takes the test once a day by placing her face in front of her mobile phone: “We see if there is aggravation. For the moment, me, it does not change. It also allows me to realize that I have really lost because the brain and the other eye correct. So me, I had seen that I had lost, but for me, not that much. So it has a reassuring side. Then it’s quite easy.”

Nothing to report this time. But if the OdySight application had detected an anomaly in Delphine Zutton’s test, the clinic would have immediately received a report so that this patient could obtain an emergency appointment. Doctors reportedly checked his vision and possibly prescribed treatment.