Diabetic Retinopathy – Diabetic Eye Disease (Nursing)

00:01 So look at this picture blown up now about diabetic retinopathy.

00:06 See blood vessels can clot off, see him.

00:10 We've got it right there for you.

00:11 Then you see these new weird abnormal vessels grow, then those blood vessels weaken and they molds and they leak into the retina.

00:22 Okay.

00:23 Now this picture is going to try to come into your eye and look what it's got a fight through.

00:30 Yeah, this is people have such significant vision changes.

00:34 So diabetic retinopathy or DR It's the most common cause of vision loss among people with diabetes and it's the leading cause of blindness among working age adults.

00:47 Okay, so Mr. Sanchez is kind of wrapping up his career but this is the one I know is the most common cause of vision loss and blindness among working age adults.

00:58 So you want to make sure you understands how important it is to let us know if you're starting to have vision changes and that he have regular eye exams.

01:08 Not a quickie one. Not a computer exam where he does it on the internet, he needs to go in and see a professional and make sure that they can either dilate his pupil or they have the technology to look at an intense exam without that because diabetic retinopathy causes changes to the retinal blood vessels and that's what causes them to bleed or leak and distort the patient vision.

01:31 Ready? I want to show you what it looks like to a patient with diabetic retinopathy.

01:38 Yeah, look at that.

01:40 I mean early on, there might not be these symptoms but later, they can have, look at that picture. It's blurry.

01:48 There's these weird floating spots and they can even progress a total blindness.

01:53 So why did I point out that early on there are no symptoms, because that's why if he's going to see a professional to examine his eyes, they're going to pick this up before they have symptoms.

02:08 Meaning they're going to pick up the problem before Mr. Sanchez has this blurry vision floating spots or blindness develop.

02:17 So every time we can reinforce screenings and wellness, that's what we do as nurses.