Question: What is macular degeneration? Is it related to muscles wearing down?

Vaanathi Sundaresan answered on 11 Nov 2016:

Macula is the part of retina, which is responsible for central vision. In the case of macular degeneration, the patient starts losing his/her central vision (blurring or blacked out) since the macula gets affected. There might be blood vessel haemorrhages, deposition of waste materials (drusen) or uncontrolled formation of new vessels and leakage. The worst case where the retinal layer gets totally corroded and underlaying sclera becomes visible. But his time the patients might have irreversibly lost the central vision.