Help Desk PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

AMD Reference Book

■ James C. Folk, M.D. and Mark E. Wilkinson, M.D., point out that given the rising demographic of the elderly in U.S. society, and the fact that people are living longer, doctors can expect to see a veritable epidemic of AMD in coming years. "Patients are concerned about their sight," says Dr. Folk. "They want to know more about AMD but much of the information available in the mainstream press is sponsored by someone who wants to sell them something and may therefore be biased." And they often ask their ophthalmologist a lot of difficult questions.

Dr. Folk and Dr. Wilkinson wrote Protect Your Sight: How to Save Your Vision in the Epidemic of Macular Degeneration with the aim of giving patients "as much of straight scoop as is possible and to summarize all the information in one book." The book addresses the questions that comprehensive ophthalmologists say they are most frequently asked, according to the authors: "the use of vitamin supplements, what’s the risk of their children getting the disease, what their children should do, what the prognosis is for their vision over the next 5 years, treatment options." The book features a chapter devoted to each of those issues.

Because patients often ignore the seemingly insignificant visual problems that mark the onset of AMD, the authors have included a detailed discussion of those symptoms, noting they are "warning signs that indicate the need to see an ophthalmologist right away," says Dr. Folk. Equally important for patient-readers, the authors offer a summary of risk factors, such as ethnicity, hypertension and smoking. "There’s also some very interesting data on statin use," Dr. Folk says, which some studies show may protect against AMD.

Protect Your Sight can be found online at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and medrounds.org, but not in conventional bookstores. The authors say they wished to publish it themselves in order to get the word out to patients sooner. "We had some prospective publishers, but there was about a 9- to 12-month lag until publication, which is too long since new findings are occurring rapidly with this disease," explains Dr. Folk. You can download it at http://bookpublishing.com/ip/includes/target_media/tm_ folkfinal.pdf. OM