How Has Glaucoma Affected Your Quality of Life?

Not Applicable

Completed

Brief Summary: Hypothesis 1: Self-reported health-related quality of life decreases as vision impairment worsens in subjects with glaucoma.

Hypothesis 2: Changes in health-related quality of life are associated with changes in clinical measures of vision and performance-based measures of visual function.

Detailed Description: You are being asked to participate in this research study because you have glaucoma, which is the second leading cause of blindness in the world and accounts for 15% of blindness worldwide. Vision loss caused by glaucoma can significantly worsen your health-related quality of life. Despite the fact that glaucoma has such a big impact on a large number of people, research examining the long-term effects of glaucoma-related vision loss on one's quality of life is scarce.

The purpose of this study is to look at the long-term effect of this condition on your quality of life so that we may gain valuable information about what factors influence the quality of life of people with glaucoma. To participate in this study, you will need to allow us to perform clinical tests on your eyes, to self-report your well-being and health-related quality of life, and to let us know how well you perform your daily life activities.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

Minimum 2-year diagnosis of primary open-angle glaucoma, chronic primary angle-closure glaucoma or exfoliation glaucoma
Disk Damage Likelihood Scale stages 5 through 8 with visual field loss
Age between 21 and 80 years
Able to understand and speak English

Exclusion Criteria

Unlikely to be available for annual ocular examination and reassessment across a 4-year period
Neurological or musculoskeletal problems that would influence performance on activities of daily living
Cognitively impaired, as assessed by a face-to-face Mini-Mental State Examination
Incisional eye surgery within the past three months
Laser therapy within the previous month
Any cause for visual reduction other than glaucoma
Any medical condition which in the investigator's opinion would preclude the subject from providing reliable and valid data

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Quality of Life With NEI VFQ-25	2 hours at each annual visit, visits 2 through 5	National Eye Institute Visual Function-25 questionnaire (NEI VFQ-25) is a measurement of patients perception of their visually related quality of life. Patients select answers from multiple choice lists of responses. Values are re-coded and converted to a scale of 0 to 100 where 0 is extreme difficulty and 100 is no difficulty at all (or best quality of life). Data from visits 2 through 5.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Eye Comfort With MGSS	2 hours at each annual visit, visits 2 through 5	Modified Glaucoma Symptom Scale (MGSS), is patient perception of their eyes comfort. Ten ocular complaints often associated with glaucoma each have a four level score (1 signifying very bothersome; 4 represents absence of problems). Scores from 10 questions are added and range from 0 to 100 where 0 represents significant discomfort and 100 represents no problems at all. The final MGSS score is an unweighted average of responses to 10 items, averaged between the 2 eyes. Data from visits 2 through 5.