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Glaucoma Essay

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Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a common and important health problem. It is one of the leading causes of blindness in Western Society (Hoskins & Kass, 1989). It is responsible for ten percent of all blindness in the United States and continues to be the second or third most common cause of blindness in the world (Bunce, Fraser, & Wormald, 1999). It is estimated that two million people in the United States have been diagnosed as having glaucoma. Glaucoma is known to affect about two percent of Caucasians beginning at the age of 40 with an increasing risk for those over the age of 60. This risk is especially high if a member of the family has glaucoma or diabetes. Further, there is a higher risk of a glaucoma diagnosis for African Americans …show more content…

Pain can be another result of the disease and is affiliated with the height of the intraocular pressure and the velocity with which it rises to that level (Hoskins & Kass, 1989). Altered vision is also a possible result of this disease and occurs in many forms. Episodic blurring of vision is frequently arises when rapid increase of intraocular pressure causes corneal edema. Loss of Snellen visual acuity generally appears late in the sequence of glaucoma unless some other problems transpire, such as central retinal vein occlusion. Other symptoms may include things such as a change in the appearance of the eye, halo vision, and redness. Before other symptoms occur, an increased level of intraocular pressure is usually observed. These symptoms and an increase in intraocular pressure are likely to occur in both open-angle glaucoma and angle-closure glaucoma, which are two of the major types of glaucoma.

Visual field defects, defects pertaining to everything a person sees from peripheral vision to central vision, and optic disc damage is the basis of diagnosis in glaucoma (Hoskins & Kass, 1989). If the eye pressure is not within the normal range or if the optic nerve looks unusual, doctors may perform a visual field test that maps out a person's field vision, or perform a test to check whether the angle where the iris meets the cornea is opened or closed. The optic nerve and visual field changes of glaucoma

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