Occurrence of Glaucoma
Glaucoma is one of the most common causes of blindness worldwide. In Germany , around 500,000 people suffer from raised intraocular pressure and about 10% of them are likely to go blind. However , the number of unreported cases is likely to be even higher. At a younger age, women and men are equally affected by glaucoma. Acute glaucoma can occur at any age, but the risk increases significantly with increasing age. Women are more affected than men.
Emergence of Glaucoma
Glaucoma originates from an imbalance of eye pressure and the blood flow to the optic nerve.
When there is high blood pressure within the vessels of the optic nerve, a high intraocular pressure can be tolerated, whereas with low blood pressure even a low intraocular pressure can lead to the progression of glaucoma. The combination of high intraocular pressure and low blood pressure in the optic nerve head is particularly unfavourable.
Consequences of Glaucoma
In Glaucoma, damage to the optic nerve is visible when inspecting the fundus of the nerve centre's characteristic cavity. First of all it affects the peripheral nerve fibres at the centre of the retina and slowly progresses towards the nerve fibres at the centre. If about 70% of the nerve fibres are affected , a bow-shaped restriction develops in the midline visual field which even in an advanced stage is often not noticed by those affected.
A typical feature of glaucoma is the gradual, but sometimes unpredictable, erratic course. For this reason, regular ophthalmological examinations are necessary when there are suspicious symptoms or illness. Also, precautionary examinations for glaucoma should be done regularly.
