Vision-Related Activities among Glaucoma Patients in Onitsha Nigeria

Objective: To evaluate performances of different task by Primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) patients at Guinness Eye Centre Onitsha Nigeria. Materials and methods: POAG patients underwent a modified culturally relevant five items of the Activities of Disability Related to Vision (ADREV) tasks. These tasks were recognizing facial expression, detecting motion, locating objects, placing pegs into different sized holes and matching socks. The score ranged from 0 to 7(0=inability to carry out any task, 7=task carried out effortlessly with grades in between scores based on ease of carrying out task). Glaucoma severity was also assessed. Results: Two hundred and four patients with mean age of 61.0 years; 46.1% males and 53.9% females participated in this study. The total mean score of the 5 tasks carried out was 26.6 ± 9.9SD; range of 0-35. The ratings for the individual tasks were: motion detection 6.21 ± 1.8; placing pegs 5.77 ± 2.1; object location 5.39 ± 2.2; facial expression 4.73 ± 2.1 and matching socks 4.49 ± 2.5. Patients aged ≥ 60 years had more advanced glaucomatous damage and greater difficulty performing the task (p=0.01) Conclusion: Older age and more glaucomatous damages were associated with poor ADREV performance. Matching of socks and identification of facial expressions were the most tasks. Older glaucoma patients and those with advanced disease require support for vision-related activities of daily living.

Author(s):

Ezenwa AC and Nwosu SNN

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