Glaucoma Case Study

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Glaucoma is the build-up of fluid pressure inside a person's eye. The effects of this fluid build-up depend on which of the two types of glaucoma a person has; open angle or closed angle glaucoma. With both glaucoma's, the anterior chamber is the space between the cornea and lens that is used as a passageway for fluid to flow through and deliver nutrients. However, with glaucoma, the absorbing ability of the anterior chamber wall is damaged, causing this liquid to begin to build-up in the anterior chamber. This pressure can damage the optic nerve, which results in "the progressive retrograde degeneration of axons and the death of retinal ganglion cells"(Mesentier-Louro et al. 2014, Introduction, para.1). These retinal ganglion cells receive …show more content…

The difficulty with glaucoma is that everyone is susceptible to it, and that the effects of glaucoma are not felt until vision loss occurs. This inability to diagnose glaucoma makes it difficult for patients to get the proper attention that they need. Currently there are no cures for glaucoma or its effects, only to try and stop it from causing further damage. The main step that patients should take with glaucoma is early diagnosis, but with many of glaucoma's effects being unnoticed, many victims will not get treatment until their vision has already been seriously damaged. With such effects as loss of peripheral vision or blurred vision, a patient then would proceed to get treated through the use of eye drops, medications, or surgery to reduce the pressure in the patient's eyes. This reduction in pressure is only temporary, and if treatment is stopped, the pressure would build up after a short period of time. This reduction of pressure can be costly and has no effect on the vision already lost. To treat this disease people are going to have to look to the future of …show more content…

Although scientists speculate that there shouldn't be a problem in this procedure in humans, there still has yet to be an actual test on humans. This means that it is still possible that there is still an unforeseen problem that may occur. Also, in one of the MSC experiments with rats, the reduction of pressure in the anterior chamber only lasted for two weeks. They hypothesized that this was because the "injected MSCs progressively transdifferentiate into specialized cells, which modify the nature of their secretome and finally lose their positive effect on the TM"(Roubeix et al. 2015, Discussion section para.5). In terms of healing for glaucoma, this would mean that a person's vision would be improved and the pressure in the person's eye would be reduced temporarily, the pressure would return in the form of fluid and would need to be reduced by currently used pressure reducers previously mentioned. However, even with these few negatives, the possibility of a solution for glaucoma is very realistic due to its availability and because it is

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