Glaucoma Case Study

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INTRODUCTION Glaucoma can be defined as the group of eye diseases having optic neuropathy as a common characteristic resulting in progressive visual loss. Glaucoma causes structural and functional changes as well as damage to the optic nerve, optic disc and the nerve fiber layer eventually leading to blindness if untreated in time. These changes usually occur as a result of the raised intraocular pressure. Elevation of the IOP is secondary to the reduced drainage of the aqueous humor through the trabecular meshwork. (Dada et al.; 2011) 1.1 The Cornea The cornea is the clear outermost layer of the eye. In order for us to see, the cornea needs to remain clear and transparent. As a result, it has no blood vessels, however, the cornea receives…show more content…
Blood supply to the superficial nerve fiber layer comes from the central retinal artery, and the short posterior ciliary arteries supply the prelamianr and laminar layers. The optic disc can be divided into three parts, first, the posterior scleral foramen or the scleral canal; it is the channel through which the retinal nerve fibers leave the eye. It is oval in shape with an average vertical diameter of 1.75 mm. The size of the canal relates to the size of the optic disc, eyes that have small canals also have small discs and vice versa. The second part of the optic disc is the lamina cribosa, which consists of collagenous connective tissues. The lamina cribosa has 200-400 pores containing bundles of retinal nerve fibers. The superficial openings of these pores appear as grey dots deep in the optic cup. The appearance of the pores changes as the severity of glaucoma changes. Slight glaucomatous damage makes the pores look round and small, in moderate damage they are oval and in severely damages eyes they appear slit-like. The last part of the optic disc is the optic cup. The optic cup is a pale depression in the center of the optic nerve head; which has no neural

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