Prevent Blindness America Launches diabetes-sight.orgPrevent Blindness America New Website To Help Fight Leading Cause of Blindness Among Working Age Population Schaumburg, IL - Prevent Blindness America (PBA) announced the launch today, of www.diabetes-sight.org, a new website enabling both patients and health care professionals to obtain information and resources needed for the prevention of vision loss from diabetes. The site was launched at the American Academy of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting, and coincides with the national observances of American Diabetes and Diabetic Eye Disease Awareness Months in November.  The National Eye Institute reports that almost half of the 16 million people with diabetes in America have at least early signs of diabetic retinopathy. Nearly 700,000 people have serious retinal disease. Each year, about 65,000 Americans progress to proliferative retinopathy, the most sight-threatening stage of the disease and as many as 25,000 people go blind from diabetic retinopathy. Persons with diabetes are also at increased risk of developing cataracts or glaucoma. The website's mission is twofold -- to educate patients about diabetic eye complications and guide people toward appropriate professional help when necessary, and offer health care professionals discussions of preferred practice guidelines, latest epidemiological estimates and summaries of key research. Dr. Maurice Rabb, medical director of PBA explained, "Over the past decade, PBA has focused on community-based screenings and education, which has vastly increased the number of people diagnosed and treated for eye disease, but we want to take our outreach one step further. We want to respond to trends and meet the public's demand for access to useful information on the Internet. We're hopeful that diabetes-sight.org will help us reach millions more people -- which would translate into more people seeking information, speaking with their health care provider, getting treated and preventing blindness." "We designed the health care provider side of the website to serve as a resource center for their practice. We will continue to update the site with the latest research information and expert opinion pieces," said James L. Kinyoun, MD, professor of Ophthalmology, University of Washington Eye Center who serves as editor of the website. In addition to information on symptoms, causes and treatments, the site has interactive tools including a vision loss simulation from diabetic retinopathy and an eye anatomy tour. Diabetes-sight.org is managed by PBA, and was made possible through an educational grant from Eli Lilly and Company of Indianapolis, Ind.
For more information, or to contact Prevent Blindness America, see their website at: www.preventblindness.org |
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