Glaucoma is an eye disorder where the fluid pressure inside the eye causes progressive damage to parts of the optic nerve, which is responsible for carrying the visual messages to the brain.

Glaucoma usually comes without any warning. There may be no symptoms in the early stages and severe loss of vision can occur before a person realises that anything is wrong.

A glaucoma assesment will usually involve an examination of the side or peripheral vision of each eye and the assesment of the health of the optic nerves at the back of the eye using a OCT ( Ocular Coherence Tomographer). This machine picking up the earliest loss of any nerves which are damaged by glaucoma. Early diagnosis by your optometrist allows the condition to be treated. Without the right treatment of eye drops a gradual but permanent loss of vision will occur.

For more information on glaucoma visit the Glaucoma New Zealand website.