For more than two decades, researchers have sought to identify "risk factors" for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the major cause of irreversible vision loss in the western world, particularly in the elderly.

The principle features and benefits of the breakthrough Sightrisk AMD Calculator to the healthcare professional are:

• It provides instant results and a basis for advice for the patient and professional to discuss together
• The likely benefits of taking the professional’s advice are clearly explained to patients using graphs that show ‘before and after’ scenarios.
• Great confidence that the results generated are highly targeted to each patient’s individual circumstances as a result of the calculator’s ability to assess a huge number of possible combinations of current established and putative risk factors and their weightings.
• The Sightrisk AMD Calculator is designed to avail of the latest developments in research and so will never be out of date.
• The online availability of the Sightrisk AMD Calculator provides the professional with the possibility of seeing patients at any time or place that the internet can be accessed; alternatively the results can be entered into the Calculator in retrospect of the results being taken.

The Sightrisk AMD Calculator calculates an individual patient’s risk of developing visually consequential AMD at a future date.  This is done in realtime as part of your patient consultation which typically might last about 15 minutes. The immediacy of the prediction contributes to a positive dynamic between professional and patient and encourages adoption of the professional advice given. 

The information gleaned as part of the consultation and inputted online to the Sightrisk AMD Calculator generates an evidence-based cumulative risk factor index as a percentage. Using this percentage as a guide, you as the healthcare professional will be in a position to recommend appropriate actions that will reduce your patient’s risk of suffering from AMD at a later date.

Why the need for a risk calculator?
In an ideal world, all possible scenarios with respect to risk for AMD would be researched (e.g. smokers, overweight smokers, individuals with hypertension, good and bad diets, and all possible combinations of these risk factors).   Obviously, many studies have already been conducted, and research in this area is ongoing.  However, due to the large number of established and putative risk factors, it would be impossible to research all possible combinations. The number of all possible combinations of current established and putative risk factors, and their weightings, which at the present time can be input into the calculator = 612,220,032,000,000 (i.e. over 612 billion billion).

The Sightrisk AMD Calculator is embedded into Sightrisk’s own proprietary software and was developed by the Sightrisk team following a detailed review of the scientific literature (over 300 published scientific manuscripts). The Sightrisk team is comprised of specialists across a number of relevant disciplines, including ophthalmology, science, optometry, mathematics, physics and statistics.

Hosted online, the Sightrisk AMD Calculator is capable of processing a patient’s ocular and non-ocular details in realtime and of providing an estimate of the overall risk of an individual patient developing visually consequentially AMD at any given age between 55 and 100 years.  This estimate is achieved using a mathematical model, which computes a composite percentage risk based on the risk factors.  Recognizing the fact that nothing in life is certain aside from death and taxation, the lower and upper limits for the calculated risk are 5% and 95%, respectively.

Each risk factor is weighted according to its reported contribution to risk for visually consequential AMD.  In this way you, as the healthcare professional, can monitor your patient’s risk for AMD in a way that reflects the patient’s current risk profile.

Using evidence-based feedback and the software’s graph-based reports, you can display to the patient there and then the reduction in risk for this blinding disease if they adopt your recommendations, for example, the cessation of smoking and/or the introduction of appropriate retinal antioxidant supplements.  The dynamic of the assessment being made in realtime and in a user-friendly way increases the likelihood of positive modification of lifestyle by the patient.

In addition, the Sightrisk AMD Calculator is capable of incorporating clinical details, where available, into the model; for example, presence of drusen (a clinical feature of early stage disease) or a patient’s macular pigment level (antioxidants in the central retina believed to protect against disease).  It is important to note that such clinical factors are not essential for the software to work, but such information will indeed strengthen the model.

It is also important to note that the Sightrisk AMD Calculator does not simply add together, or average out, risk factors; this would produce a meaningless and valueless result.  Instead, it uses a unique statistical approach which allows for the fact that it is unlikely that an individual will be under attack from one risk factor only, and also that no two individuals are the same.

Finally, the Sightrisk AMD Calculator is designed so that it can be readily and quickly up-dated to reflect the latest advances in research.  The fact that it is hosted online brings with it the enormous advantage of enabling rapid updating for subscribers.  As a result of this future-proofed approach to its design, the Sightrisk AMD Calculator will never be out of date!  

Register here to purchase an annual licence, with unlimited access, costing €549 + VAT.

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