Message From our President

Glaucoma Awareness Month &

MLK Birthday

Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness in the United States. Glaucoma has no noticeable symptoms in its early stages, and vision loss progresses at such a gradual rate that people affected by the condition are often unaware of it until their sight has already been compromised. (AAO.org)

According to Glaucoma.org., It is estimated that over 3 million Americans have glaucoma, but only half of those know they have it. (1)

In the US, more than 120,000 are blind from glaucoma, accounting for 9% to 12% of all cases of blindness. (2)

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world, according to the World Health Organization.

After cataracts, glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness among African Americans. (1)

Blindness from glaucoma is 6 to 8 times more common in African Americans than Caucasians. (3)

African Americans are 15 times more likely to be visually impaired from glaucoma than Caucasians. (4)

The most common form, open-angle glaucoma, accounts for 19% of all blindness among African Americans compared to 6% in Caucasians. (5)

Other high-risk groups include people over 60, family members of those already diagnosed, diabetics, and severely nearsighted people.

Estimates put the total number of suspected cases of glaucoma at over 60 million worldwide. (6)

Glaucoma accounts for over 10 million visits to physicians each year. (7)

In terms of Social Security benefits, lost income tax revenues, and health care expenditures, the cost to the US government, is estimated to be over $1.5 billion annually. (8)

Sources: (1) The Eye Diseases Prevalence Research Group, Arch Ophthalmol. 2004; Prevent Blindness America; (2) National Institutes of Health; Quigley and Vitale, Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 1997; (3) Javitt et al., Undertreatment of Glaucoma Among Black Americans. N Eng J Med 1991; (4) The Salisbury Eye Evaluation Study, Arch Ophthalmol 2000; (5) Racial differences in the cause-specific prevalence of blindness in east Baltimore. N Engl J Med. 1991; (6) Quigley and Broman "Number of people with glaucoma worldwide in 2010 and 2020", 2006; (7) Center for Disease Control and Prevention/National Center for Health Statistics, 2010 & 1995; (8) NEI, Report of the Glaucoma Panel, Fall 1998

Remind everyone; Glaucoma Awareness Month this January (and every mo.), the National Optometric Association urges the public that the best defense against developing glaucoma-related blindness is by having a routine, comprehensive eye exam.  

By the way, Happy New Year!! We have had an interesting 2022. Coming out of COVID-19 (but not really), we have all undergone mental exercises, testing patience, health issues, and loss. As healthcare providers, we should show strength (no weakness) and still be able to handle our most difficult patients. But, on the contrary, I found this weakness to be a strength. When we suffer through sadness, depression, disappointment, and sometimes despair, it develops us so we can glean from it and share, so others can empathize and aid in our restoration. Amid many negativities in this world, I have also witnessed great humanity and altruism. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK Day Jan.16) has summed it up in these quotes; I challenge you to read each of these 16 quotes and pause to ponder their true meaning.

 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes:

"The ultimate measure of a man/woman* is not where he/she* stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he/she* stands at times of challenge and controversy." * (my emphasis)

"Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can only be what I ought to be once you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."

"People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other."

"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."

"The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea."

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education."

"I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you."

"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

"We are not makers of history. We are made by history."

"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals."

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."

"We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right."

"Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."

"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."