Neighbor News
Dr Alan Mendelsohn - South Florida Eye Awareness Crusader
Dr Alan Mendelsohn, the South Florida ophthalmologist has made it his mission and goal to spread awareness of serious eye issues.
I have made it my mission to spread awareness of serious eye issues.
Take something like macular degeneration. It is one of the most damaging eye illnesses but the vast majority of people have limited or no background about it.
If you went to 500 people on the street and asked them about serious illnesses that could impact the body you would be told cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, tumors, strokes and the like. People aren't going to mention things such as glaucoma and cataracts. They simply aren't as well known and they thrive on this ignorance.
Prevention is the best cure and because of this, I have made it his mission to increase awareness of serious eye issues. If a patient has a regular eye exam we could detect something before it has developed. In turn the course of treatment at this stage is going to be significantly less complex than if the ailment has advanced.
The elderly are especially vulnerable to suffering from eye issues. Someone who is 80 or 90 is clearly going to have a lack of mobility but then to have vision loss on top of this, if not blindness, the quality of their life is going to be significantly impaired.
It's just like seeing the dentist. If you go regularly, you've got a good chance of containing or preventing any serious dental issues - if you only go when your mouth is in agony, by definition it's serious.
It shocks patients when I tell them but they could have as much as 40% vision loss before they come to see us.
It was a pleasure to recently host Kristi Krueger of the WPLG Local 10 News and talk about eye issues and raising awareness of them. If just one person went to their eye doctor and had an exam as a result of the report, it would be a success!