A career leader with over 25 years of experience in general international management in South Africa, Europe, and the United States, Quinton Oswald from Vero Beach has held executive positions in companies like Shire, Neurotech, and Notal Vision. At Notal Vision, Quinton Oswald oversaw a team as a chief executive officer at the early commercial-stage company, focusing on patient-based diagnostics, market tests, and product line monitoring on dry and wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD).
AMD is a degenerative and progressive eye disease that blurs central vision, mostly in older adults. It does not cause total loss of vision but can cause legal blindness. Legal blindness occurs when you can only function visually with prescription glasses or contact lenses.
Two types of AMD exist, dry and wet AMD. Dry AMD, also referred to as non-neovascular, accounts for 80 percent of AMD instances, where the section of the retina in the eye that processes central vision deteriorates gradually. The signs and symptoms include smudges or spots in the vision in the morning, difficulty in adjusting from dark to light instances, words that tend to disappear when reading, and straight lines that seem to bend. These symptoms appear gradually over time.
The wet AMD, the neovascular type, on the other hand, occurs when blood vessels start growing abnormally under the retina, leading to fluid and blood leakage in the near-surrounding area. The fluid build-up results in pressure and distortions and can lead to unpleasant to severe effects on the vision and almost total loss of vision.
Unlike dry AMD, wet degeneration occurs instantly, though typically after the onset of dry AMD. The wet AMD symptoms include difficulty seeing fine detail without bright light, face recognition trouble, blurry central vision, and straight lines seeming to bend.
