Early color vision changes in age-related maculopathy.

Little is known about the early natural history (prior to visual acuity loss) of age-related maculopathy (ARM). We report here results from noninvasive psychophysical tests designed to evaluate aspects of chromatic and achromatic visual processing in patients with ARM known to be at increased visual risk. These tests results indicate that prior to a visual acuity loss the sensitivity of the B-Y chromatic pathway and the achromatic system is reduced. This reduction increases over time and accelerates at or near the time of clinically manifest signs. At that time it also includes sensitivity loss in the R-G chromatic pathway.