Rest Assured With An Accurate Glaucoma Screening

An accurate Glaucoma diagnosis cannot be accomplished by a brief screening, like the ones given at health fairs. Free screenings are great and are able to detect people with high ocular pressure, they do not catch the cases of Glaucoma where the ocular pressure is normal. Ocular pressure can fluctuate throughout the day and some people with Glaucoma never have elevated pressure.

A thorough examination for the detection of Glaucoma includes the following:

1) A complete eye exam including, vision, pupil reaction, examination of the structure of the eye, intraocular pressure and examination of the optic nerve and retina.

2) Eye Pressure can be examnined in various ways. The most common method is called applanation tonometry where a numbing drop is placed in the eye and a device using a blue light gently touches the eye. Another commonly used technique is the air-puff tonometry.

3) Drainage angle of the eye and the Iris should be looked at very closely.

4) The optic nerve should also be examined closely to check for damage from Glaucoma.

If any of the above testing procedures leads to a diagnosis of "glaucoma suspect" then a visual field test will be done. In this test the peripheral vision is tested for any blind spots.