Dame Judi Dench battles to save eyesight from age related disease

London - Dame Judi Dench has been has been diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration, which has been robbing her of her eyesight.

The 77-year-old actor said her sight is already so bad that she cannot see faces in front of her - only outlines. Friends have to read scripts to her so she can learn her lines.

But she hopes recent treatment for the condition - which also affected her mother - will help stop the progressive decline.

“I can’t read scripts anymore because of the trouble with my eyes. And so somebody comes in and reads them to me, like telling me a story,” the Daily Mail quoted her as saying.

“It’s usually my daughter or my agent or a friend and actually I like that, because I sit there and imagine the story in my mind.

“I’ve got what my ma had, macular degeneration, which you get when you get old. I had wet in one eye and dry in the other and they had to do these injections and I think it’s arrested it. I hope so.’

“The most distressing thing is in a restaurant in the evening I can’t see the person I’m having dinner with,” she said.