The American Macular Degeneration Foundation premieres new films during AMD Awareness Month 2023

The AMDF films featured during AMD Awareness Month will include "Serge Hollerbach - A Russian Painter In New York," from The Vision and Art Project.

The American Macular Degeneration Foundation (AMDF) is set to premiere three new films during Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) Awareness and Low Vision Awareness month. AMDF is committed to AMD patient empowerment through research, education, and advocacy, and provides free resources on AMD including a comprehensive website, fact sheets, print materials, a video library, and more.

The three new films – on the topic of living well with AMD – will be part of multiple, awareness-spreading activities throughout the month, which will also include two previously released films by the AMDF's Vision and Art Project, and new content on their website and social media targeted at raising awareness around risk and prevention.  

Supporting all of these activities, AMDF promotes the annual tradition of wearing the AMD Awareness Pin, designed to start conversations about macular degeneration.

"Our films offer hope and inspiration to those already living with AMD, that yes, a full life is still possible with vision loss. Our other activities focus on increasing awareness around risk, what symptoms to watch for, and risk reduction," says Matthew Levine, spokesperson for AMDF.

In this same vein, AMDF recently launched a four-part cooking series, Eat Right for Your Sight, based on the cookbook of the same name. The series, available to the public on YouTube, empowers patients to select foods that can help protect their vision, while also learning to cook safely with low vision.

AMD is an incurable, progressive eye disease that can cause central vision loss. The risk of developing AMD increases with age, and can severely impact daily activities and independence. 

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Vision and Eye Health Surveillance System, has updated the estimate of Americans living with AMD to about 19.8 million as of 2019. This is a significant increase over previous estimates of about 11 million.

"The more we learn about AMD, the more it becomes clear that risk reduction through lifestyle changes needs to start much earlier than diagnosis, which, unfortunately, usually occurs only after someone notices a change in their vision," said Chip Goehring, president and founder of AMDF. "By the time a person is in the higher risk age groups (55 and older), the precursors to symptoms have likely been developing for decades. We need to get the word out there. These days, everyone knows a healthy lifestyle can reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke later in life. They need to know that's true for protecting your vision too."

For more information on AMD, please visit www.macular.org