Reduced Quality of Life in Elderly Patients with Glaucoma

Glaucoma is the most severe eye disease that leads to irreversible blindness, and is a widespread pathology among the population of different countries and especially in the elderly. The urgency of the problem increases in connection with the demographic processes occurring in industrial countries, characterized by aging of the population. The development of glaucoma in the elderly exacerbates the image and quality of life of these patients, which must be taken into account in the implementation of medical and social and specialized ophthalmological care. However, the study of the quality of life in elderly glaucoma patients by a specific questionnaire was not carried out.

The purpose: to analyze the quality of life of elderly patients suffering from glaucoma for a long time.

Material and methods. The study of quality of life was carried out in the Tambov branch of the S. Fyodorov Eye Microsurgery Federal State Institution. In clinical conditions, a survey of 228 patients with glaucoma aged 60–75 years, who made up the main group. The survey was conducted on a special questionnaire-National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire among patients of the above group by direct interviewing. The results were integrated into 122 scales for processing and analysis in accordance with the requirements of this questionnaire. Similarly, for comparison, the quality of life was studied in 178 patients of the same age with no history of glaucoma and at the present time. In assessing the quality of life, arithmetic averages and their errors were calculated, and the nonparametric t-white criterion was used to determine the reliability of the differences.

Results. It was found that the development of glaucoma in the elderly causes a significant decrease in the quality of life on all scales of the questionnaire, reflecting the specific manifestations due to visual impairment. At the same time, the most pronounced effect of glaucoma has on the reduction of distant vision — 19.5 ± 1.3 points against 69.5 ± 1.8 points (p < 0.001) in the control group. The defeat of glaucoma leads to a significant decrease in the quality of life of elderly patients and other indicators. In the main group, the overall score of vision (23.5 ± 1.5 points vs. 75.2 ± 1.9 points in the control), near vision (26.8 ± 1.6 points vs. 73.5 ± 2.0 points in the control), high dependence on outsiders in solving everyday problems (30.5 ± 1.6 points vs. 79.3 ± 1.8 points in the control) were significantly lower. To a lesser extent, with the development of glaucoma, color perception suffers.

Conclusion. The analysis of the quality of life in elderly patients with glaucoma is of practical importance for the organization of an individual treatment and prevention plan, since it takes into account the opinion of each patient about the perception of the disease.

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