Symptoms & Diagnosis

In this section we examine the various signs, symptoms and examinations used for the detection and management of glaucoma.

Early detection of glaucoma is extremely important because treatment is much more likely to succeed when started early than when damage has already progressed to an advanced stage. Though this sounds simple enough, it actually isn't because:

a) diagnosing glaucoma is possible only if the patient visits his ophthalmologist

b) changes in the early stage of the disease are sometimes not easily differentiated from variations that pose no threat.

There is often a period of uncertainty as to whether or not the patient will develop glaucomatous damage.