Understand Glaucoma and Know When and How it can Manifest in You

The end result of a high intraocular pressure and your optic nerve damage can manifest as glaucoma in you.

The numerous nerve cells that are present at the back of your eye can get damaged due to the excessive intraocular pressure or glaucoma and this may even lead to blindness.

When you trace back the history of glaucoma, you can find that ancient Greeks have used this word or terminology to indicate one particular eye disease that lead to blindness.

As technology improved and when doctors found out treatment methods for cataract then they started differentiating glaucoma from cataract.

In the year 1622, an English oculist by name Richard Banister, in his first book on ophthalmology made a mention about glaucoma and he attributed the reason of high eye pressure to glaucoma.

He further explained that when you rub your eyes over the eyelid area and if you feel your eye is little hard or solid than normal, then probably you have glaucoma.

Today, glaucoma diagnosis is done based on three factors and they are:

1. Measuring the IOP or the intraocular pressure. For a glaucoma patent this pressure will be on a higher side.

2. Measuring or identifying the change in visual field. Glaucoma patients will have a restricted visual field and loss of peripheral vision when compared with other normal persons.

3. Diagnosing for any damage in optic nerves. Glaucoma patients will have a high level of damaged optic nerves.

Under any normal circumstances, glaucoma will start showing off with an increase in intraocular pressure. In 1930, doctors were able to identify two forms of glaucoma .

They are open-angle and narrow-angle glaucoma and the glaucoma form is decided based on the angle width at the meeting points of cornea and iris.

If the measured angle falls in the range of 10-degree to 20-degree, then the glaucoma is graded as Grade I and II and both the grades are considered as narrow angle glaucoma.

If the measured angles are of 30-degree to 40-degree, then the glaucoma can be categorized as Grade III and IV and these two grades are termed open angle glaucoma.

A glaucoma that is caused due to presence of structures in close proximity within the eye or narrow angle is considered as angle-closure glaucoma and this is in fact a structural problem of the eye.

There are many varieties within open-angle glaucoma category and the most commonly diagnosed glaucoma is the primary open-angle glaucoma.

The other varieties that constitute the open-angle glaucoma family are considered as either structural or secondary glaucoma and some times even certain disease can manifest into glaucoma.

Today, ophthalmologists have identified many forms of glaucoma and the number may even far exceed a dozen or even more.

Few other scientists claim that they have in fact identified around forty types of glaucoma. The most prevalent form of glaucoma is the open-angle glaucoma but there are other patients who do have other forms of glaucoma also.

The only advantage of finding various kinds of glaucoma is that researchers can better identify the reasons and find some more effective treatment methods so as to give the glaucoma patients a better sight and living conditions.

Contact us