Home vision testing counterproductive for central serous chorioretinopathy patients Take-home Amsler grids may cause additional stress to central serous chorioretinopathy patients, whose symptoms are brought on by anxiety, a speaker at the Retina 2009 meeting this month said.

"If your patient really is a stressed out Type A personality, I might suggest not giving them an Amsler to go home with because they could fixate on this," Ann E. Fung, MD, said.

Dr. Fung explained that central serous chorioretinopathy is often induced by anxiety and stress hormones as well as epinephrine in what is seen as the typical patient: a man between 20 years old and 50 years old in a high-stress job. For these patients, she suggested lifestyle modifications reducing stress and extreme activities as a first-line treatment. Therefore, Amsler grids may not be the best at-home method of observation.

"If you think it's going to cause more stress, just do it in your office," she said.

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