Diabetes and Your Eyes: The Importance of Annual Eye Exams

Shu, I-hsiang

Item

Diabetes and Your Eyes: The Importance of Annual Eye Exams

Shu, I-hsiang

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Abstract

Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in the United States. With diabetes, one has a 25 times higher risk of blindness than the average American and each year in the US, there are more than 12,000 new cases resulting from diabetes. This significant risk of developing blindness is because diabetic eye changes often occur silently, without symptoms, until it is too late and permanent damage to your eye has already occurred. The two most important things a diabetic can do for eye health is to properly manage blood sugars and receive an annual dilated eye exam from an eye health professional. This will prevent development and progression of any new disease in the eye as well as detect any existing condition of the eye early enough such that it can be managed without complications. This project aims to improve the level of compliance for annual eye exams by diabetics at Milton Family Practice through an educational handout on how diabetes affects the eyes, the changes that can occur, and how their eyes should be examined annually.