Glaucoma Tests To Be Used In Christchurch

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31029, 7 April 1966, Page 18

Glaucoma Tests To Be Used In Christchurch

A pilot scheme for testing for glaucoma in people over 40 will be introduced in Christchurch in about three months.

Special instruments for the early detection of glaucoma were being imported from Germany by the New Zealand Foundation for the Blind, the chairman of the Christchurch advisory committee to the foundation (Mr I. D. Wood) said yesterday, when he presented his annual report. “These will help to reduce the incidence of blindness in Canterbury,” he said. Their acquisition was a direct result of the “magnificent” response to Braille Week last year. Eye Pressure The instrument, called a tonometer, registers eye pressure. “Glaucoma is a condition where the pressure in the eye becomes raised, and in a great many cases does not give rise to any symptoms at all,” said Dr. A. L. Sutherland, president of the New Zealand Ophthalmological Society, yesterday. “The only way of detecting the disease is to check the eye pressure of patients who come to doctors.

“In general the disease is found in people over 40. and as an experiment in Christchurch we are hoping to get

10 general practitioners using the instruments on every one of their patients over 40 who visits them, whatever their complaint.” “Christchurch ophthalmologists have been in touch with the Canterbury faculty of the New Zealand College of General Practitioners, who are keen to co-operate,” Dr. Sutherland said. Once the Pilot scheme was established, it was hoped that more and more doctors would use the instrument. “One would hope that in the fullness of time it will be just as natural for doctors throughout the country to take the eye pressure of their patients over 40 as to take their blood pressure.” If doctors participating in the pilot scheme found any suspicion of the disease, they would send the patient to an ophthalmologist or to the eye department of the Christchurch Hospital, he said. One Of Major Causes

“Glaucoma is one of the major Causes of blindness, and as this particular form has no symptoms the patient

may not know he has it until it has gone too far. “It’s been found in pilot schemes like this in other countries that up to two per cent of those examined had the disease. In some countries where they had a big drive, they had hundreds of people coming along to be tested. “There was such a rush of patients that ophthalmologists and hospital staff were snowed under.” For this reason, the scheme would be introduced gradually in Christchurch, to find what need there was for increased facilities. Testing for glaucoma had already been started in Auckland, Hamilton and other parts of the country, he said. “We hope within 12 months there will be enough figures available to assess its value.” The scheme was one of the ways in which oculists were trying to co-operate more closely with general practitioners. “More and more diseases of the eye are found to be connected with general bodily health,” Dr. Sutherland said.