13/07/2017

Author: Sonia Gholami, Rotterdam Ophthalmic Institute

Sonia Gholami Early Stage Researcher of the Ageye Marie Curie ITN has recently obtained her PhD from the University of Valencia, Spain. She defended her research project entitled “Intraocular scattering changes with age” under the supervision of Professors T JTP van den Berg, NJ Reus and JC van Meurs.

Aging of the eye may cause changes that affect the quality of vision by means of a reduced visual acuity and an increased straylight. Straylight is the functional impairment caused by the scattering of light in the eye, which leads to a veil of straylight over the retina and, thus, to visual complaints such as hazy vision, blinding by headlights from upcoming cars, and loss of contrast. These complaints can be assessed subjectively with specialized questionnaires on visual function. In this project she has investigated what complaints are caused by each of these factors in the aging eye and how ophthalmologists take these factors into consideration in their decision-making to perform (or not) cataract surgery.

This scientific work has been possible thanks to the Ageye Marie Curie Initial Training Network funded by the European Commission (FP7-PEOPLE-ITN-2013-608049).