Glossary

Detection

 The most common form of glaucoma (primary open angle glaucoma or POAG) is often not detected by patients until a late stage because one eye tends to 'fill in' for the other, the central detailed vision is not affected until a late stage and people often wrongly assume that the redution in the vision is simply due to age.

Everyone over 40 years of age should ensure that they have regular sight tests every two years to discover if their eyesight has deteriorated. These tests are a good opportunity to check for any signs of glaucoma.

During a routine sight test make sure that you ask the optometrist to carry out all three glaucoma tests which are ophthalmoscopy, tonometry and perimetry as these three tests together increase the likelihood of detecting glaucoma by four times when compared with ophthalmoscopy alone. i.e. ophthalmoscopy alone will usually detect about 1 in 4 detectable glaucomas, a combination of ophthalmoscopy and tonometry will detect about 3 in 4 and only the use of all three tests will ensure the best chance of glaucoma detection at the earliest possible stage, when treatment is most effective.