Quality of life in patients with early, moderate and advanced glaucoma

Abstract

Quality of life in patients with early, moderate and advanced glaucoma AbstractPurpose To evaluate the quality of life in glaucomatous patients using two different questionnaires: the medical outcomes study 36-item short-form health survey (MOS SF-36) and Viswanathan et al's questionnaire and to compare these two questionnaires. Methods Seventy-seven patients with glaucoma were consecutively selected. Two force-choice questionnaires were administered to each patient. Viswanathan et al's questionnaire was related to visual disability and the second was related to the quality of life from the MOS 36-item shortform health survey. Both questionnaires were evaluated among all the considered patients and the results were compared. Then the questionnaire which did the best evaluation was used to test the quality of life in three different subgroups based on the mean deviation of the worse eye. MannWhitney non parametric test and Spearman's r coefficient were used and a P value less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. A linear regression model was used. Results

Quality of Life and Burden of Care in Glaucoma Patients and Their Families in a South Asian Population

“…Reduction in QoL of glaucoma patients is well documented in western population [2,7,9,10]. There is hardly any data on these issues from the South Asian region where a large population of the world lives.…”

“…This is a potentially dangerous situation while driving because brain cannot recreate sudden or unexpected changes in the scenery ahead. Previous studies have uniformly demonstrated decreased vision specific quality of life and more visual disability in glaucoma patients [2,9,10,15].…”

“…If unchecked patient may continue losing vision and become blind. Because of this threat of potential blindness, glaucoma patients are under continuous psychological stress, which along with the cost and side effects of the treatment adversely affects quality of life [2].…”

Areas of the visual field important during reading in patients with glaucoma

“…The notion that greater levels of VF loss are associated with greater self-reported difficulty finding the next line of text while reading (performing a returnsweep) has been investigated elsewhere with specific questions [28,29]. In another study, Iester and Zingirian asked patients with glaucoma is if they ''have trouble following a line of print or finding the next line when reading''; interestingly, 60 % of the patients who answered ''yes'' were shown to have a paracentral scotoma [30]. Furthermore, research shows that if the central vision is compromised, there is an advantage in eccentrically fixating during reading such that text falls in the inferior, rather than the superior, VF [31].…”

The Relationship between Knowledge, Sickness Period, and Intraocular Pressure to the Quality of Life of Glaucoma Patient

“…Banyak faktor yang berhubungan dengan kualitas hidup penderita glaukoma diantaranya ketidakmampuan penglihatan, masalah minum obat glaukoma, efek samping obat, ketidakcocokan pengobatan, atau kesehatan mental penderitanya. Dalam jangka panjang pengobatan glaukoma sangat diperlukan untuk menambah angka harapan hidup penderitanya (Iester dan Zingrian, 2002).…”