Medications used to treat glaucoma

Abstract

The goals of glaucoma therapy for the patient and the physician are ultimately the same ones, but they are often approached from very different perspectives. Most patients with glaucoma visit their ophthalmologist on a regular basis because they understand that they have a potentially blinding disease that requires compliance with examinations and therapy. The patient's goal is to preserve the vision manifested in his or her visual field. While the treating ophthalmologist's overriding goal also is to preserve visual function for the patient, the doctor's immediate goal is to preserve those physiological structures whose anatomy underlies the basis for the ability to see. In treating the patient, the ophthalmologist needs to take into account new understandings of risk factors as well as new concepts, such as those that suggest that aging is a major risk factor for glaucoma. © 2010 Springer-Verlag New York.