CNIB’s “AMD Challenge” Wins Top International Award

The AMD Challenge, a multimedia learning tool launched by CNIB in May 2007, received top honors recently at the 62nd annual conference of the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) in Bozeman, Montana, winning an Award of Excellence in Interactive Media.

The AMD Challenge employs user-friendly language, engaging illustrations and animated sequences to “challenge” people who are at risk for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) to educate themselves about this devastating eye condition. AMD is the leading cause of significant vision loss in people over 50 in the developing world.

The tool takes users inside the eye and shows them how it works – and how AMD reduces its function. People using the Challenge can teach themselves about the disease in just a few minutes, and then download and print out a handy PDF summary of what they’ve learned for future reference.

According to AMI, an international association of professionals in the medical illustration field, the Challenge won the interactive media award for meeting “the highest standards of the profession.” The Award of Excellence is the top tier of awards given out by AMI each year, and The AMD Challenge was one of only two projects to receive the award in its category. The AMD Challenge was generously supported by the AMD Alliance International, which provided a grant to cover the costs of the project.

Although hundreds of thousands of Canadians have AMD, there is little public awareness about the disease – or about basic but critical information such as AMD prevention strategies, risk factors and treatment. The AMD Challenge encourages people to take positive steps to reduce their risk for the disease or to learn more about how they can manage it better if they already have it.