Roughly one out of seven Chinese people aged 50 and older is suffering age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but few know of the common eye disease compared with other conditions like glaucoma and cataract, said senior eye specialists.

AMD is a common eye condition among the elderly and a leading cause of vision loss that causes difficulty in recognizing faces, driving, reading, printing, or working on things at close range, such as sewing.

The disease gradually destroys macula, a part of the eye, which provides sharp, central vision to see objects clearly.

“With no timely intervention, the vision loss could be irreversible and seriously affects quality of life for sufferers,” said Chen Youxin, deputy director of the ophthalmology department at Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

Worse, public awareness of the disease remains low, he said citing a recent online survey led by Chen.

It found that nearly 70 percent of the 6,000 respondents had not known of the major symptoms of AMD.

Also, only 12.5 percent of the surveyed believed that AMD could be controlled by treatment.

According to medical experts, in some people, AMD progresses slowly and vision loss does not occur for a long time, while, for others, it advances quickly, causing a loss of vision in one or both eyes.

Despite limited vision, AMD does not typically cause complete blindness and patients can still see using peripheral vision.

Chen urged people aged at least 55 to undergo an AMD screening each year for early detection and treatment, which works well to control the advancement of the disease.