As the credit crunch keeps on crunching and finances are squeezed ever tighter it is tempting to put off that visit to the optometrist and to carry on with your old specs for another few months. If your vision is good then it is even less likely that you will make an appointment for a sight test – after all you can ‘see’ that nothing is wrong!
Surely, if a person was, literally, nearly half blind, they would know all about it, wouldn’t they? Yet glaucoma has no symptoms in its early stages and many people lose up to 40% of their field of vision before they notice any problem!
Often this will mean that an undiagnosed sufferer will start having more trips and falls and if they are driving, may miss cars overtaking or even people or children crossing the road with potentially disastrous consequences, all of which could have been avoided by having a simple routine eye test every two years.
Early detection is key to controlling visual loss from glaucoma, but, because of the present financial crisis, it is likely that even more people are going to put off their sight test. Many people are entitled to a free test, but may not know about it.
The total cost of sight loss in the UK has been estimated at ??4.9 billion a year(1) and the medical cost of falls related to visual impairment has been estimated at ??128 million over a 12-month period(2). Can we really afford not to go for an eye test?
During National Glaucoma Awareness Week our aim is to encourage everyone over the age of 40 to have a regular (once every two years) routine eye test that includes all three glaucoma tests (ophthalmoscopy, tonometry and perimetry), whether or not they believe anything is wrong with their vision.
We are asking for your help to publicise this advice so that needless visual loss and blindness due to glaucoma can be avoided.
David Wright, CEO: “A comprehensive eye test for glaucoma including all three glaucoma tests is painless and quick and amazingly good value for money when compared with the consequences of losing your vision. Let us not come out of this recession, whenever that may be, with a recession legacy of blind and partially sighted people who had ‘nothing wrong with their sight’ when they decided not to have their eyes tested.”
Source
International Glaucoma Association