Sight Unseen: Glaucoma Steals Eyesight without Warning—and It Isn’t Colorblind

Link to MinorityNurse.com

Subscribe to the RSS feed!

January is National Glaucoma Awareness Month. Here’s what nurses need to know about this serious eye disease that disproportionately affects African Americans.

By Dr. Carol F. Merritt, president, National Optometric Association, and Dr. Kevin Alexander, president, American Optometric Association

You’ve probably heard of glaucoma, but many people don’t know how it can affect their vision--and how quickly it can steal their eyesight. Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that present no obvious symptoms in the early stages, but can cause vision loss without warning and eventually lead to total blindness. Glaucoma affects more than 3 million Americans, but over half of them don’t even know that they have it, according to Prevent Blindness America.

Glaucoma begins by attacking peripheral vision, typically causing objects to appear less clearly. These changes may seem minor, and at first it is possible to compensate by squinting or turning the head to focus better. But glaucoma can accelerate quickly, causing eyesight to rapidly and irreversibly deteriorate.

As with many diseases, certain factors can increase the risk of developing glaucoma, such as age, race or genetics. Glaucoma usually affects one in 200 people by age 50, but as many as one in 10 people by age 80. African Americans are at particularly high risk: They are four to five times more likely to develop glaucoma than Caucasians. In fact, glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness in African Americans. Not only do African Americans usually develop glaucoma 10 years earlier than Caucasians, they are also six to 15 times more likely to be blinded by the disease.

What’s really alarming, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA)’s American Eye-Q™ survey, is that nearly 20% of adults have never been to an eye doctor, and more than 60% of respondents thought that glaucoma was preventable. Glaucoma cannot be prevented, but if diagnosed and treated early, it can be controlled. This reinforces what the National Optometric Association (NOA) and the AOA already recommend: Adults need regular, comprehensive eye exams. Fortunately, Medicare covers annual glaucoma screenings for people considered at heightened risk for the disease, such as individuals with diabetes, those with a family history of glaucoma, African Americans age 50 and older and Hispanics age 65 and older.

A quick trip to the optometrist may not only be sight-saving but potentially life-saving. Optometrists can not only evaluate a person’s eye health and clarity of vision, they can also detect chronic and systemic diseases such as glaucoma, diabetes and even hypertension.

So help your patients start off the new year right by setting up an appointment with an eye doctor. And maybe it’s even a resolution that you should make, too.

Resources for Nurses and Patients

The National Optometic Association, which is comprised primarily of minority optometrists from throughout the U.S., has a patient/doctor partnership program that addresses glaucoma, diabetes and high blood pressure. For more information about this initiative, called the “Three Silent Killers Program,” call the NOA at (877) 394-2020.

The American Optometric Association provides a Glaucoma/Diabetes Hotline program that matches Medicare patients with participating optometrists in their area. The hotline number is (800) 262-3947.