Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness for people over the age of 60. Roughly one in 180 adults in the U.S. have vision loss from this disease. But half of the people with this condition don’t know they have it because it often shows no symptoms — until the damage is already done.
In light of Glaucoma Awareness Month, we will be exploring ways to slow its progression and manage vision loss with AT.
Detecting and Decreasing Damage
Around age 40 is when people should visit an ophthalmologist for a comprehensive eye exam, especially if they fall under one of these high risk factors for glaucoma:
- A family history of the disease
- African, Hispanic or Asian heritage
- Ocular hypertension
- Farsightedness (hyperopia) or nearsightedness (myopia)
- Previous eye injury
- Long-term medical steroid use
- Thin corneas
- Thinning optic nerve
- Diabetes, migraines and high blood pressure
In simple terms, glaucoma is basically a buildup of fluid in the front of your eye, which increases pressure inside the eye and damages the optic nerve.
If it’s caught early enough, glaucoma can be treated easily with medicated eye drops on a daily basis. Surgical options alleviate damage by improving the drainage of eye fluid.
In addition to these forms of treatment, moderate exercise can reduce the kind of intraocular pressure (IOP) associated with glaucoma. According to Dr. Harry Quigley — a professor and head of glaucoma services at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University — aerobic workouts (like brisk walking and swimming) reduce IOP, a key mediator in protecting the retinal ganglion cells, which transmit processed visual information via the optic nerve to the brain.
Through early detection and effective treatment, people diagnosed with glaucoma can avoid disabling vision loss. However, any vision loss already present is irreversible. But there is assistive technology available to help navigate life with low vision.
AT Tailored to Glaucoma
One example of AT that literally guides people with low vision through everyday life is an app called Lookout.
Built in collaboration with the blind and low-vision community, this app uses an Android phone’s camera and generative AI to scan and explain what users are seeing in real time.
In Text mode, you can skim through your mail and have detected portions of text read aloud to you. Document mode captures an entire page of text and can even read handwriting. The Explore mode identifies objects and people in your surroundings. This, along with Find mode, are particularly beneficial features for people with glaucoma who have peripheral vision loss, as they guide users forward and to their sides, helping them reach a bathroom door or mug on the coffee table. Find mode can also tell the direction and distance to an object, depending on device capabilities. With Images mode, you can even ask questions about a specific image.
Lookout is available in more than 30 languages, and it runs on devices with Android 6 and above.
In addition to causing peripheral vision loss, glaucoma typically affects contrast sensitivity, making it difficult to detect the difference between an object and its background.
An AT device that’s especially helpful when it comes to contrast is the Amigo video magnifier from Enhanced Vision.
Enhanced Vision’s proprietary feature, Dynamic Contrast, makes text with insufficient color contrast appear clear, crisp and defined. This is especially helpful when certain text and background color combinations are too similar in color — to the point that they cannot be detected by other video magnifiers.
The Amigo is currently available through INDATA’s Equipment Lending Library.
Another life-changing product from Enhanced Vision is the DaVinci desktop video magnifier. When connected to a user’s computer, the HD camera magnifies anything in front of its lens and projects it onto the computer screen. It also reads text aloud.
After INDATA consumer Wade Jackson Sr. was diagnosed with glaucoma, the DaVinci emerged as his favorite AT device. INDATA specialists saw “his face light up as he was able to scan and read his bills without straining his eyes.”
“My mail that I couldn’t read had been piling up all over the house,” Wade said. “I can now read it with the DaVinci.”
In addition to assisting with practical matters, like reading mail, the DaVinci helped another consumer reconnect with his past.
“I once worked with a man who wanted to document old newspaper articles from his small town,” said INDATA Demo & Loan Lead Blake Allee. “He wanted to find important and unique stories in the newspapers through the years, but he was struggling to read the stories. I was able to show him the DaVinci, and it really helped. With this, he was able to read through these papers and find some of the stories he was looking for.”
Again, glaucoma often develops without clear warning signs, or at least with ones that are easy to ignore — like headaches and difficulty seeing in dim light. In honor of Glaucoma Awareness Month, now is as good a time as any to schedule an eye exam with a medical provider and catch it early. But if you’re in the later stages, INDATA is here with plenty of AT to help.
Glaucoma Awareness Month image courtesy of the National Eye Institute.
Lookout app photos courtesy of Google Play.
Amigo photo courtesy of Enhanced Vision.
DaVinci photo courtesy of INDATA.