Título / Title

SOLAR MACULOPATHY ASSOCIATED TO ACUTE STRESS

Introdução / Purpose

Chronic stress is recognized as an important cause of solar maculopathy. Solar maculopathy is strongly associated with psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. Usually the victim of this pathology reports several episodes of direct exposure to the sun. We report the case of a single exposure that lasted about 30 minutes of a young black woman who was under stress while living in a European country where she was a black immigrant minority.

Material e Método / Methods

We report a case of bilateral solar maculopathy associated to acute stress.

Resultados / Results

We demonstrating through multimodal analisys, the Solar maculopathy in its classical form.
Multimodal analisys by FAF, FA, OCT.

Discussão e Conclusões / Conclusion

Immediately after sun or laser exposure, patients usually present impairment of visual acuity, central and paracentral scotomas, and metamorphopsia [1, 2, 3]. While patients show gradual improvement of visual acuity [4] and in central and paracentral scotomas, mainly with complete recovery of vision for some months, some have devastating lesions and permanent reduction of visual acuity [5]. The central scotoma and visual acuity of our patient did not improve after corticoid and non steroidal drops use. This report focuses on a possible devastating consequence of the individual when trying but not achieving social insertion in the country of immigration. Man is a social being. Factors such as gender, race, level of education and socioeconomic level may place the immigrant in situations that threaten physical and mental health. Our patient is a young, black woman living in a poor neighborhood who has been looking for a dream to live in a country that could offer her better social conditions. However, he had to return to the country of origin, bringing with him a permanent lack of visual acuity because he had not been able to create social ties in the country of choice to live.

Palavras Chave

Acute stress; expats; depression; immigrant stress; solar maculopathy.

Area

CLINICAL RETINA