The eye is like a camera, the retina is like a negative, and the most important part of the retina is called the macula. There is a small depression in the center of it called the macula centrale, which is the sharpest and most critical part of the retina for vision, and it mainly plays the role of fine vision. The macula is a very small area of the retina, but it is in a very critical location and plays a very important role. Age-related macular degeneration sometimes develops slowly enough that you don’t notice a change in your vision, and sometimes it progresses rapidly. It does not cause pain, but it can rob you of the ability to recognize what is in front of you. It usually starts in one eye and is often overlooked at first. Patients with age-related macular degeneration in one eye have a 40% chance of developing it in the other eye within 5 years. Etiology The cause of age-related macular degeneration is unknown. It may be a multifactorial disease, and in addition to age, other factors that have not yet reached definitive confirmation include ethnicity, gender, genetics, long-term chronic light damage to the macula, metabolism, nutrition, smoking, and the environment. To some extent, age-related macular degeneration is a hereditary disease. Immediate family members of patients with age-related macular degeneration have a high prevalence of the disease, and patients with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia, obesity, smoking and alcohol consumption, as well as those with light-pigmented irises and hyperopia are more likely to develop the disease. Types of Age-related Macular Degeneration (Clinical Presentation) Non-neovascular AMD (dry) accounts for about 80-85% of cases and is seen as vitreous warts in the fundus, which can also progressively cause map-like atrophy of the macula. The most common symptom is mild blurred vision. In general, dry age-related macular degeneration occurs more often over the age of 50, and vision is often slowly decreasing or distorted. In dry age-related macular degeneration, the phagocytosis ability of retinal pigment epithelial cells decreases, and a lot of garbage accumulates between the choroid and the retina, which impedes the delivery of nutrients and the elimination of waste products. Neovascular AMD (wet) accounts for about 15-20% of cases and occurs mostly in older people over 60 years of age. The main symptom is a loss of central vision with a dark shadow obscuring the center of the visual field, which may not occur when you see things with both eyes, but when you use one eye, there is a dark shadow in the visual field. Another thing is that the vision will be distorted, straight lines will become curved, horizontal lines will become wavy, etc., and an otherwise beautiful image will look crooked. There is also the fact that the contrast of what you are looking at decreases, and it is not a bright, clear picture in front of you.