Judi Dench’s Health: Her Battle With Blindness, Retirement, & How She’s Doing Now

The Academy Award-winning actress has been battling macular degeneration for over a decade. Find out more about her battle with the condition here.

• Dame Judi Dench has been battling macular degeneration, affecting her eyesight.
• She was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration in 2012.
• She recently revealed that her eyesight has gotten so bad that she can no longer see on film sets.

Dame Judi Dench has shown no signs of stepping away from the screen in her very long career. The actress, 88, has long been an outspoken advocate for older actresses continuing to work. While she continues to work, she has suffered from age-related macular degeneration (AMD) for many years now, and she’s been very open about how her eyesight has been affected in more recent years.

Despite battling the difficult condition, Judi has shown that she’s just as dedicated to acting as she’s ever been. She’s not letting AMD stop her. She opened up about the struggle in a recent interview with The Mirror’s magazine Notebook, revealing that she had no plans to stop working anytime soon. Find out more about Judi’s battle with AMD here.

Judi Dench Diagnosed With Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

Dame Judi Dench revealed that she had been diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration in a 2012 interview with DailyMail. She revealed that her mother had battled the same condition, but revealed she was receiving treatment for two different types. “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,” she said.

Unfortunately, the condition made it difficult for her to read film scripts, and she revealed she usually needed help from friends, her daughter Finty or her agent. “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,” she told the outlet. “The most distressing thing is in a restaurant in the evening I can’t see the person I’m having dinner with.”

At the time, the A Room With A View star revealed she had no intentions of retiring, despite her deteriorating eyesight. She admitted that she was still able to see, especially with the help of bright lights and glasses.

What Is AMD?

AMD is caused by damage to the macula part of the eye, which is sensitive to light, as a person ages, according to the National Eye Institute. Very often it leads to blurred vision. There are two types of macular degeneration, dry and wet, and as Judi revealed, she has each type in separate eyes. While early stages of dry AMD may go undetected, seeing straight lines as blurry is usually a symptom of late-stage AMD. There is no treatment for dry AMD, but doctors can help get the most out of remaining vision and protect if only one eye is affected. Wet  AMD is caused by blood vessels growing in the back of the eye and can be treated.

How Long Has Judi Dench Been Sick?

Judi first revealed she’d been diagnosed in 2012. As there’s no treatment for dry AMD, she continues to battle the condition to this day. As she’s been losing her sight for over a decade, the Shakespeare in Love actress has been very forthcoming about the ways that she adapts to keep working. “I’ve had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is having great friends of mine repeat them to me over and over and over again. So I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won’t notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!
she told The Guardian in 2021.

How Is Judi Dench Doing Today?

While Judi’s eyesight has worsened over the years, she will not let that stop her! The Goldeneye actress revealed she has to get very close to people to recognize who they are and can walk on past someone she’s known for years without recognizing them due to her condition. She’s said it’s very important to rely on other people around her to help guide her when working. She’s revealed she can no longer really see when she’s on set for a movie.

Judi told The Mirror that while she’s had to adapt the way that she prepares for a movie and learns a script, she does have one skill that’s helped her. “I can’t see much. But you know you just deal with it. Get on. It’s difficult for me if I have any length of a part. I haven’t yet found a way. Because I have so many friends who will teach me the script. But I have a photographic memory,” she told the outlet on July 30, 2023.

Judi has called the change a “shock to the system” and said it was “ghastly” to need to rely on others. “It’s terrible to be so dependent on people,” she said. Despite the difficulties, she vowed to keep working “as much as I can,” and not retire. Most recently, she starred in the Apple TV+ movie Spirited in 2022.