People who are unemployed and live in rural areas are unable to access eye care and often turn up with advanced glaucoma, a study has found.
The study, done by doctors from Aravind Eye Hospital in Puducherry, assessed the treatment-seeking pattern among the south Indian population which comes to the hospital.
Since people do not notice significant sight loss, unlike due to cataract, they tend to postpone the hospital visit. This leads to loss of vision ultimately. But this could be avoided if the hospitals could devise a proactive method and screen the population, the study said.
The hospital, which caters to a large population in and around Puducherry, Karaikal and neighbouring districts of Tamil Nadu, saw a decline of over 80% in glaucoma surgeries in 2020 as compared to 2019. However, it is similar compared to the past five years, the hospital found. There was a significant backlog of patients requiring glaucoma surgeries. Many of them sought treatment for defective vision at an advanced stage.
During COVID-19
Since glaucoma patients tend to be in the older age group with associated systemic ailments that makes them more prone to developing severe COVID-19 they may have avoided visiting hospitals, doctors surmised.
Doctors say the drop in the number of surgeries has been steady in the past five years. This would mean that there is already a backlog of patients who may have lost their sight. The way out would be to target such people and conduct glaucoma awareness camps in rural areas. It would also help to make free eye camps more comprehensive and help diagnose glaucoma early.
“Glaucoma being an asymptomatic condition, most cases are diagnosed by opportunistic screening,” said R. Venkatesh, chief medical officer at Aravind Eye Hospital, Puducherry.
During the pandemic, people did not opt for normal eye care or regular check-up because of fear of COVID-19. Hospitals were catering only to routine emergencies.
“As a result, many glaucoma patients went undiagnosed and many patients already under care also, did not come for review properly. Especially patients who need a glaucoma surgery could not get it done in time. This being a ‘silent killer’ would have resulted in visual loss affecting patients’ quality of life. So, we need to proactively strengthen opportunistic screening and find ways to get high risk patients back into system to tackle glaucoma-related blindness,” he said.
