The IMO Foundation and the Parlament de Catalunya unite against glaucoma

Barcelona, 12 March 2012- La Fundación IMO, dedicated to research, teaching and prevention of eye diseases, it has promoted the campaign “Break the encirclement at the vision. fight against glaucoma”, with which, coinciding with the world Glaucoma week which is celebrated these days (until March 17), seeks to promote the prevention of this disease, second cause of blindness in the world.

So, he has designed a series of activities, including free trials of early detection of the disease, which will be carried out throughout the week at the headquarters of the Ocular microsurgery Institute of Barcelona. These same explorations will also be held today Wednesday 14, 9. 45 am. to 18. 00 h., in the Parliament of Catalonia, which has wanted to join this initiative hosting a day in which a team of specialists in glaucoma and optometrists carried reviews all the parliamentarians who so wish, as well as staff and press accredited. The exploration will include a visual acuity test, a decision of eye pressure and an exploration of the optic nerve.

With this initiative, the medical and scientific community and the political class want to join efforts to highlight the importance of the prevention of a disease that today has no cure and can cause blindness, if not detected and is in its initial stages. In addition, the campaign emphasizes the large bag of patients who have glaucoma and do not know and which covers about half of the affected population. These people are losing peripheral vision in a slow and progressive manner, which is why, often not aware until they do not have nearly 80% of the affected field of vision. In this sense, the ophthalmologists also seek the collaboration of other groups that can give the first voice of warning, as the optical, who has directed a first talk with the title: “objective: diagnose 50% of patients who have glaucoma and don’t know it”. In addition, the IMO Foundation and the official Col∙legi d ’ Ã’ptics Optometristes de Catalunya, for the second consecutive year, have signed an agreement to distribute informational material about the disease in all the Catalan optics. In addition to basic facts about glaucoma, the IMO Foundation has distributed a symbol to shine on the flap, whose circular design refers to the peripheral vision loss caused by glaucoma.

This small circle of green color as a sign of hope for future healing of disease will also be all week to the scope of the members of the Congress of the deputies of Madrid, which last year adopted a legislative proposal not to fight against glaucomadisease which the document agreed unanimously referred to as “the silent thief of vision”.

In addition, the campaign includes a talk for general public that under the title, “The keys to understanding glaucoma”, will take place next Thursday 15,-19. 30 h. at the headquarters of IMO (Josep Maria Lladó, 3.) Exit 7 of the GDR. (de Dalt).

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a disease that causes progressive damage to the optic nerve, the part of the eye that sends images to the brain. As a result, the visual field is decreasing gradually and can cause blindness, if it is not treated on time. Currently, glaucoma, which affects one million people in Spain, is the second leading cause of preventable blindness in the world, where there are about 60 million people with the disease.

Current treatments ‐fármacos, laser or different types of surgery (trabeculectomy, not Folliculitis perforans deep esclerectomía or valves) ‐ manage to reduce eye pressure and they slow down the progression of the disease, but do not allow to recover lost vision. Therefore, it is important to diagnose the disease in early stages, which can be done through simple and painless eye controls. The IMO Foundation recommends that all people undergo eye revisions on a biannual basis from the age of 40 and annually in cases of risk: people with a direct family history of glaucoma with high myopia or other serious vision problems, over 60 yearsas well as black or Asian people.

La Fundación IMO and the world Glaucoma week

The IMO Foundation has been created by a team of ophthalmologists and researchers from the Institute of Ocular microsurgery of Barcelona with the aim of developing projects of research, teaching and prevention of eye diseases. Prevention and investigation of new effective therapies are the two main horses of battle of glaucoma, a disease now incurable, although with therapies capable of halting the loss of vision that causes, if diagnosed and treated early. Therefore the IMO Foundation wanted to join the world Glaucoma week, a joint initiative of the world Glaucoma Association (http://www.worldglaucoma.org) and the Association world of patients of Glaucoma (http://www.worldgpa.org), which promotes information and awareness initiatives around the world to highlight the need to prevent the disease.