QUESTION: What are the stages of AMD?
ANSWER:
There are 2 types of AMD (doesn’t apply to other forms of macular degeneration): dry and wet.
For dry AMD, there are 3 stages: early, intermediate, and advanced dry also called geographic atrophy.
Wet AMD and Geographic Atrophy are considered advanced stages of AMD. Most people – 85-90% – have early or intermediate dry AMD. You may hear more about wet AMD because of the current treatment, but it is actually much less common and everyone does NOT progress to either of the advanced stages.
Did you know you can have one eye with wet and one with dry? Are you confused? I hope this article will help: ‘Wet and Dry, One Eye or Both…I Am SO Confused!’
The article ‘Macular Degeneration Stages’ does a good job of explaining each stage, tells what symptoms you might experience, and how each stage is diagnosed.
One of the best resources I’ve found to help us understand AMD is from the site The Science of AMD.
Don’t be intimidated by all the text – where you see the symbol of a speaker in the right corner of a section, choose it, and you will get audio narration. I’ve circled that symbol on the site.
go back to Frequently asked questions