The direction of research into visual disability and quality of life in glaucoma

Abstract

BackgroundGlaucoma will undoubtedly impact on a person's ability to function as they go about their day-to-day life. The purpose of this study is to investigate the amount of published knowledge in quality of life (QoL) and visual disability studies for glaucoma, and make comparisons with similar research in other chronic conditions.MethodsA systematic literature search of the Global Health, EMBASE Psychiatry and MEDLINE databases. Title searches for glaucoma and six other example chronic diseases were entered alongside a selection of keywords chosen to capture studies focusing on QoL and everyday task ability. These results were further filtered during a manual search of resulting abstracts. Outcomes were the number of publications per year for each disease, number relating to QoL and type of glaucoma QoL research.ResultsFifteen years ago there were no published studies relating to the impact of glaucoma on QoL but by 2009 this had risen to 1.2% of all glaucoma articles. The number of papers relating to QoL as a proportion of all papers in glaucoma in the past 10 years (0.6%) is smaller than for AMD and some other disabling chronic diseases. Most QoL studies in glaucoma (82%) involve questionnaires.ConclusionQoL studies in glaucoma are increasing in number but represent a tiny minority of the total publications in glaucoma research. There are fewer QoL articles in glaucoma compared to some other disabling chronic conditions. The majority of QoL articles in glaucoma research use questionnaires; performance-based measures of visual disability may offer an additional method of determining how the disease impacts on QoL.

A view on glaucoma—are we seeing it clearly?

“…This isn't surprising because untangling the visual component from all the other factors that contribute to everyday visually guided tasks such as mobility, driving, searching for items, recognising faces, and reading is difficult to do. Nevertheless, the research activity devoted to this challenge is insufficient; 7 this is a pity, because meaningful landmarks for disease progression in glaucoma would help in managing patients. Furthermore, the benchmark for a new treatment success in a clinical trial should really be aligned to measureable reduction in visual disability rather than often imperceptible changes on a clinical visual field or visual acuity chart.…”

Comparison of vision-related quality of life in primary open-angle glaucoma and dry-type age-related macular degeneration

“…QoL in patients with glaucoma and AMD were shown to be impaired, with multiple daily activities being more difficult to perform compared with normal individuals. [4][5][6][7][8]18,[28][29][30] Several studies have investigated vision-related QoL in patients with glaucoma and AMD. 7,14-21,31-36 They revealed that total scores of general sighted population was significantly higher compared with AMD or POAG patients.…”

“…Similar findings were reported in the literature. 30,[38][39][40] In the current study, results of 24-2 SITA and 10-2 SITA visual field tests were used to provide an objective measure to evaluate the impact of field changes on QoL. MD values of Humphrey 24-2 SITA visual field tests were found to be significantly lower in patients with POAG than those with AMD.…”

Assessment of novel binocular colour, motion and contrast tests in glaucoma

“…A fundamental part of assessing clinical effectiveness involves measuring quality of life (QOL). Although there is now increasing interest in the QOL of glaucoma sufferers, less than 2% of all glaucoma studies have focused on QOL (Glen et al 2011). A number of QOL papers have shown that even in early glaucoma some patients do experience limitations in their vision (Viswanathan et al 1999, Janz et al 2001, Nelson et al 2003, Goldberg et al 2009) and these studies have also reported that patients have difficulties with dark adaptation and disability glare.…”