Are you 40 years and above? Are you a Black person and drive a vehicle? Are you diabetic, hypertensive and also drive? Even if you do not fall within this bracket, please note that you are at risk of suffering glaucoma. This piece is therefore a must read for drivers based on presentations by two optometrists, Dr Chinonyerem Okere, the head of the Optometry Unit in Zone RS6 Headquarters Clinic of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Port Harcourt, Rivers State and Dr Lucky Nabari Kina, chairman, Nigerian Optometric Association, Rivers State chapter, who both startled me recently with research findings on this ailment. The research findings show that Blacks with the above features stand at greater risk to become glaucoma victims: an ailment I also learnt shows no signs, is not painful but can only be detected through a thorough eye test.
I was further startled when they said that unlike cataract, another eye disease, which has a cure, glaucoma does not have a cure but early detection can enable specialists prevent you from going blind. Besides the above, I equally learnt that other risk factors include people with a family history who have a 50 per cent chance of having it. Like I said, if you are 40 years and above and you are Black, you are at risk. In the case of family history, anatomical factors such as shallow anterior chamber, increase in lens size and narrow entrance to angle are also inherited.
I told you that their presentations opened my eyes to the reality of this eye ailment.
The two experts spoke during a workshop to mark the World Glaucoma Week, titled, B-I-G (Beat-Invisible-Glaucoma): Glaucoma and Driving. I have chosen to share these materials which I borrowed, strongly believing that that this would be useful in saving our sight. Secondly, the outcome of the lecture tallies with the focus of Zone 6 which since 2016 has struck a life saving partnership with Shell Petroleum Development Company in projecting healthy driving as a plank for achieving the 2017 corporate strategic goals of the Federal Road Safety Corps, which aim to reduce road traffic crashes by 15 per cent and fatalities by 25 per cent. It was this partnership which in 2016 churned out frightening findings, which showed that out of the total number of cases screened, 10 cases were advanced level of glaucoma. At the workshop I learnt about what is called the visual field of a person, which means all the points of a physical environment that can be perceived by a stable eye. Glaucoma literally can result to tunnel vision, a situation whereby the driver cannot see peripherally. Adequate visual field is very important for drivers as peripheral vision is needed for common driving tasks such as avoiding lane hoppers and use of side mirror. Also glaucoma can affect central visual field as well resulting to the driver having hazy vision thereby knocking down a pedestrian or running into an oncoming vehicle. Therefore drivers with visual field defects show poorer performances with driving speed, steering stability and tune to collision.
For the next two weeks, we will be looking at what glaucoma is, the types of glaucoma, causes and symptoms and ultimately what to do to prevent it. Although there are other eye ailments, I am focusing on this because of the revelation by my colleagues that this is not the type you totally rely on surgery to give relief to the patient. They said there is no guarantee that surgery will help unlike others which I earlier mentioned.
First let us find out what the Highway Code says on this, to serve as our guide: “The eye is one of the sensory organs required for driving. The others being the ear, nose, skin and tongue respectively. It is therefore important that the eyes of any applicant for drivers licence should be good enough to see near distant objects and should also be able to differentiate colours, road signs, markings, identifying various road conditions as well as seeing other road users. Visual acuity test is a necessary requirement. Where there is refractive impairment, corrective measures should be made through the use of recommended medical glasses and this is captured in the applicant’s driver’s licence details”. In a lecture delivered last year by Dr. Okere, to mark the importance of eye care, adequate eye examination and working towards actualizing the World Health Organization (WHO) campaign of eradicating preventable blindness by the year 2020 (of which glaucoma is one of the leading causes), she noted that the eyes are like the windows through the body appreciates light. The body stands the risk of not enjoying the beauties and wonders of the world if the use of the eyes is lost. As a demo to remind us, shut your eyes for about 10 seconds and have a feeling of what it is like to not perceive light and at worse being blind. This explains why at the various drivers licence centres, eye test is compulsory for all applicants for the Nigerian drivers licence because what you see determines your reaction or your stopping distance which is equal to your thinking and breaking distance although my doctor friends have some reservations on the findings of these tests and as such have suggested that the eye test should vary for different categories of drivers since the demand on the job differs as it is more strenuous on commercial drivers unlike private drivers. I would even add that since in the case of glaucoma, age is a factor it might be necessary for the eye test to be more thorough for older applicants compared to younger applicants.

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