Ophthalmology and Retinitis Pigmentosa

Ophthalmology:

The ophthalmology has Greek origins, in English, it means, the study of eyes. The
field covers the study of eyes of generally all the animals including humans.
Ophthalmology is the branch of medicine, which primarily deals with eye diseases.
Ophthalmologists is a medical specialist in surgical eye disorders. Ophthalmologists can
operate surgically on eyes so this makes them surgeons as well as medical experts.

Retinitis Pigmentosa:

Retinitis Pigmentosa, also shortened as RP, is a class of genetic disease which causes the
debility in the sight. Retinitis Pigmentosa includes the following diseases:

Usher syndrome
Lebers congenital amaurosis
rod-cone disease
Bardet-Biedl syndrome
Refsum disease

In Retinitis Pigmentosa, vision of the patient gradually degenerates because photo-

receptor cells tend to die. These cells play very important for our sight. Photo-receptors
that consist of rods and cons, are the cells found in retina, capture the image of the
object our eye aims at, and convert it into electrical signals. These signals are sent to the
brain, where we can finally see and recognize the objects. Due to Retinitis Pigmentosa,
photo-receptor cells begin to die, due to which, eyesight of the patient extremely gets
disturbed.

Symptoms:

One of the earliest symptoms of Retinitis Pigmentosa is, patient is suffered from night-
blindness, and further, getting worse, central vision and difficulty in color perception are
faced by the patient. Rods are aligned at outer side of retina and they are focused by the
dim light. When rods start getting damaged, patient faces night-blindness. So, that can
be the first clue or symptom of Retinitis Pigmentosa. By the time, cones also get
damaged, due to which, color perception becomes harder for the patient as well as they
also have to face central vision.

Rarity:

Retinitis Pigmentosa is a very rare disease. According to the stats, both in United States
as well as all over the world, one out of four thousand people suffer from Retinitis
Pigmentosa.

Inheritance of Retinitis Pigmentosa:

Retinitis Pigmentosa is a genetic disease which can be inherited from any of the parents
who is diagnosed with this disease. About one hundred thousand of the patients of
Retinitis Pigmentosa in United States are diagnosed with this disorder due to genetic
mutation.

Cells of the eye need an exact amount of a particular protein to function properly as
they are coded, but mutated gene instructs the cells with the wrong commands to
generate less or more amount of protein than it is needed to be and also changes the
composition of the protein. This creates disturbance in the system that further leads to
the disorder called Retinitis Pigmentosa. There are normally three patterns are observed
through which genes is transferred from parent to child:

Autosomal recessive Retinitis Pigmentosa

Autosomal dominant Retinitis Pigmentosa
X-linked Retinitis Pigmentosa

Tests:

Different types of tests are available which can be used in risk-assessment of passing the
disordered gene from diagnosed parent to the child. An accurate diagnosis can also be
achieved through test, which keeps the patient in a better position.

Acu-Vision Therapy
https://www.acuvisiontherapy.com