Introduction of Retinitis pigmentosa

Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 1:17 pm Post in Eye Diseases

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is the slow and gradual retina degeneration. Unfortunately, it occurs most in young children, whose both eyes may have poor night vision. As the disease progresses, both central vision and peripheral vision will be narrowed and blindness occurs in final. Night or color vision loss can be detected by certain eye exams and the way to measure peripheral vision extent is a visual field testing.

Young children are more probably to gain retinitis pigmentosa because the disease is inherited from any of the parents. Even if one of the parents only carries recessive genetic tendencies of retinitis pigmentosa, the child may be born with the disease at a chance of 1%. The reason for poor night vision of retinitis pigmentosa patients is the deterioration of rods, which are responsible for light sensation in dim conditions. Retinitis pigmentosa also affects the light sensitive cells in retina, which explains why people with the disease have narrowed visual field.

Treatments for retinitis pigmentosa such as artificial retina are still under researches. There are only several remedies that are possibly effective. Some eye experts recommend vitamin A for vision loss delay. Occupational therapy is considered helpful to adjust vision decline. Low vision devices can magnify and illuminate objects for people with retinitis pigmentosa.

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