Events 2010 - Akan Datang

Dear MDS members,

Apologies for the delay in announcing the events for 2010. We are in the process of confirming venues for this year because our previous "home" at Alexandra Hospital will be moving to a new location in Yishun in the next few months.

Give us a little bit more time and notices will be placed here and on our website very soon. We are scheduling our first event to be in end February and we hope it will be an exciting year once again. Thanks.

Cheers,
MDS Exco

Marigold the miracle?

Is marigold the new miracle supplement for macular degeneration? A story from the United Kingdom has been stunning the world of macular degeneration lately, after a British man claimed that taking marigold extracts have pretty much cured him of age-related macular degeneration.


The British media has been hailing him as possibly the first person in the country to recover from the devastating condition that causes blindness.

Mr Harry Marsland, 73, is a retired optician and he had lost most of his sight in his right eye to AMD. He was even considering learning Braille, with his left eye also heading down the same route as his right.

After trying various treatments without success, he decided to try a vitamin supplement called Macushield, which contains mesozeaxanthin, derived from marigolds. He said he has since recovered 95 per cent of his sight in his left eye.

"It was in August my wife Nina picked up my magnifying glass and realised it was dusty,' he said. "She was the first to realise I no longer needed to use it.

"A few months later we were walking in the dark and I suddenly realised I was no longer holding on to my wife. It's miraculous, considering at one point I was literally blind in the dark.'

Click here and here to read more about this amazing story.

First human trials for stem cells?

Macular degeneration patients could soon become the world's first to benefit from a new transplant operation using embryonic stem cells. Scientists from an American biotechnology company has applied for a licence to begin clinical trial on those with macular degeneration. They are confident that it would be approved and the trials could start as soon as early next year.

Embryonic stem cells are stem cells derived from human embryos that are only a few days old. They are believed to have the ability to develop into any of the scores of specialised tissues of the body. The hope is that they could be used to repair the damaged organs and tissues of patients with a relatively simple transplant procedure. In the case of macular degeneration sufferers, repair the macula.

Scientists are optimistic, citing positive results from tests on animals. Transplants of the human cells into rats with macular degeneration resulted in a "100 per cent improvement" in vision with no side-effect.

For the complete story, click here.

Goodbye stilettos and slippers

Alexandra Hospital gerontologist Lydia Au treated some 30 MDS members to a very interesting talk last Saturday. She is an expert on falls amongst the elderly and gave us some good news and bad.

We learned, for example, that 1 out of 4 over 65-year-olds who have fallen and broken a hip, do not survive the first year after the fall. They generally die of infections. Women are more likely to break a hip, but they are also more likely to survive the experience! Therefore Dr Au recommends keeping up our calcium and Vitamin D levels to help retard osteoporosis.

Some factors that predispose to falls are intrinsic and not much can be done about them – the ageing process, for example, means that our balance, eyesight, hearing, blood circulation, etc. is not what it used to be. But many factors are extrinsic, and therefore controllable.

Paying attention to slippery floors, poor lighting, clutter, loose carpets is particularly important for those who have experience a fall. Because their chances of a second fall are greatly higher.

So what to look out for? Some factors are medical, like paying attention to the side-effects of drugs, monitoring blood pressure and glucose levels, avoiding rapid movements which might affect balance, and making sure that one wears the right type of shoes – avoid high heels, loose-fitting shoes, and especially open-heeled slippers.

Simple awareness, we learned, can help reduce the changes of a nasty fall. And those of us with MD – or any form of poor vision – are especially vulnerable.

MDS Talk - Low Vision and Falls

Speaker: Dr Lydia Au
Date: Nov 28, 2009 (Sat)
Time: 2 - 4pm

Venue: Seminar Room, Alexandra Hospital

With low vision as a result of macular degeneration, sufferers are more likely to have some difficulties navigating around previously-familiar spaces like homes and offices. While the occasional trips may just be a nuisance, serious falls, especially among the elderly, would be severe. In some instances, it could even be life threatening.

Alexandra Hospital's geriatrician Dr Lydia Au is an expert on falls among the elderly and has studied the problem that low vision people has with movements. She spoke during last year's AMD Awareness Week, and has now kindly agreed to share her work and expertise with MDS members.

Tips will also be shared on how to make little changes in your homes to make sure that it is as friendly to low-vision people as possible.

* All talks are free for MDS members. Non-members can sign up as members at the door for an annual fee of just $10.

** Space is limited, so please reserve your seats soon. Please register by calling Anne at 6238-7387 or e-mail Sharon at

Egg yolks to combat AMD

Regular egg yolk consumption may reduce the risk of dry, age-related macular degeneration by raising macular pigment concentrations, according to a report in the November issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study subjects were all older adults who were taking statins, and their low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol levels were unaffected even when they ate as many as four yolks per day.

"Two eggs per day is probably all that is needed to maximize blood levels of lutein and zeaxanthin as well as macular pigment optic density (MPOD) status," senior author Dr. Robert J. Nicolosi from the University of Massachusetts in Lowell told Reuters Health by email.

The 5-month study had 4 phases. As Dr. Nicolosi and his coauthors explain, a 4-week baseline phase was followed by a 5-week 2 yolks/day phase, then a 4-week washout phase, and finally a 5-week 4 yolks/day phase.

In the 52 participants (mean age, 69 years), serum lutein increased by an average of 16% after the 2-yolk phase and 24% after the 4-yolk phase compared to baseline, and serum zeaxanthin increased from baseline by 36% and 82% after the 2- and 4-yolk phases, respectively.

Macular pigment optic density increased significantly after both regimens (more so after the 4-yolk phase), but only among individuals with low baseline density values.

Serum HDL-cholesterol increased during both phases of the study, the researchers note, but there were no significant changes from baseline in total cholesterol, low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol, or triglyceride levels.

"We are presently evaluating the effect of consuming 12 eggs/week for 1 year on the progression of dry age-related macular degeneration" in subjects with early- to mid-stage disease, the investigators write.

"Although this was only a 5-week study and the 1-year data are not ready for comment, it would seem to me that physicians could consider that those patients on statins, who have early stage age-related macular degeneration, could be prescribed 2 egg yolks per day," Dr. Nicolosi said.

He added, "Our evidence and those of others indicate that increases in blood levels of lutein and zeaxanthin and MPOD correlate well with risk for age-related macular degeneration. So the egg yolk appears to enhance the bioavailability of nutrients that have been shown to reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration, and at 2 egg yolks per day for individuals on statins, does not raise LDL and significantly raises HDL."

The disabled go high-tech

The Straits Times

Oct 6, 2009

Special devices let them lead more independent lives
By Tan Weizhen

MR KUA Cheng Hock, 55, carries or uses four gadgets on any given day, and is heavily dependent on them - just like any Singaporean, except that he is blind.


He has an iPhone: Its built-in Global Positioning System helps him to manoeuvre his way around. He also uses an application for using public transport. These are applications anyone can use, but once he turns on the touchscreen phone's accessibility function - a mode for the disabled - a voice reads out what he selects on the menus.

He also relies on a Braille notetaker, a newly bought Macintosh that he uses mainly to surf the Web, and an e-book reader.

Technology has become the great leveller for the disabled - as well as the non-profit groups that care for them - allowing them to venture into a world that was previously inaccessible. They are using specially tuned phones and gadgets, iPhone applications and video chats to achieve a measure of independence.

The Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped sees about 500 members a year using its assistive devices. The Singapore Association for the Deaf has also noted an increase in interest, with more than 1,400 members opting to try devices, out of its base of 5,600.

The Touch Silent Club set up a cyber centre in 2006 to cater to the emerging needs of the deaf, who have become much more tech-savvy, said the centre. It has 2,000 members who use the centre to search for jobs and prepare resumes.

'Apart from using their hearing aids, the deaf also tap the Internet and webcam to chat, and video call on their mobile phone,' said Mrs Wee Bee Hong, senior manager of the club.

The Assistive Technology Centre, set up in 2002 under the Society for the Physically Disabled, conducts between 100 and 115 new assessments each year of the gadgets that would be most helpful to an individual. It has 700 devices, a leap from the handful when it first started.

It is currently working with special schools such as the Rainbow Centre - Margaret Drive School to make devices that children can use to communicate, said the centre's director of technology, Ms Chia Woon Yee. Those who work with the disabled say that technology has become much more intuitive to use, and therefore valuable.

'Prices have also come down, making it more affordable,' said Mr Ando Yeo, executive director of the Singapore Association for the Deaf. One blind user, Mr Ng Choon Hwee, said specially made devices for the disabled used to cost twice as much as mainstream devices, which can be used now, with special software.

There are even computer tablets to help those with speech and brain impairments. They choose a symbol that represents what they want to communicate, and it is transformed into a sentence onscreen.

At the Apple App Store, a number of applications have been created for those with special needs. Besides those for the blind and deaf, there are applications for those with autism, dexterity problems and speech disorders. For example, iCommunicate helps autistic children to communicate, by letting them develop storyboards instead of text.

More than ever, the disabled are able to live and work like anyone else. Mr Ng works full time in a church office, using a computer with speech software and a Braille notetaker. Mr Kua uses his TranSGuide phone application to tell him when his bus is arriving.

'Now I do not need to rely on other people to look out for me, or go up every bus to ask the driver if it is my bus,' he said. 'Blind people are not restricted or helpless any more. In fact, many of us are becoming more social, getting on Facebook and also chatting using MSN or Skype.'

tanwz@sph.com.sg