Glaucoma Awareness Month
January is Glaucoma Awareness month. Glaucoma is a leading cause of vision loss and blindness in the United States yet as many as half of people with glaucoma aren’t aware they have it. This is mostly because Glaucoma has no early symptoms. Glaucoma is a progressive eye disease, meaning that if left untreated, vision loss resulting from glaucoma can worsen with time and eventually may lead to blindness. The disease can damage a large part of your optic nerve before it ever becomes apparent in your peripheral vision loss.
High eye pressure, or elevated intraocular pressure (IOP), is a common cause of glaucoma. Eye pressure cannot be felt so in the early stages of the disease, glaucoma typically does not have any symptoms and can often go undiagnosed without routine eye exams.
Should you or someone you know be concerned about glaucoma, see the link below from the National Eye Institute for information about glaucoma, questions for the doctor, and a glaucoma symptom tracker.
Glaucoma.org provides useful information for managing and treating this eye disease including managing glaucoma in the workplace and how to optimize the work environment when dealing with this disease. Glaucoma related workplace challenges can include eye strain from prolonged screen use, difficulty with peripheral vision in the office or problems adjusting to various lights. Communicating with your employer about your condition can be a useful strategy for dealing with glaucoma in the workplace.
Glaucoma.org provides lots of resources on workplace strategies for dealing with glaucoma in the workplace including implementing the 20-20-20 rule recommended by the American Academy of Ophthalmology: Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds or use tools to support vision such as Screen Magnification software or Text-to-speech programs. Positioning your screen at eye level to reduce strain and being aware of the lighting in your workplace are a few simple strategies to take.