Iapb and Uici in the field for the prevention of an “invisible disease”

TERNI World Glaucoma Week is held every year from 8 to 14 March: it is an opportunity to remember to take care of the health of your eyesight, also thanks to the numerous activities that are organized every year. In Terni, too, the national initiatives organized by Iapb Italia Onlus (the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness) are joined in partnership with Uici, the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired. Volunteers will be present in Corso Tacito and Piazza della Repubblica on 9 and 11 March, from 9 to 12, and on 10 March, from 15 to 18, in order to distribute information material. According to the Ministry of Health, glaucoma is “a chronic degenerative disease, often due to the increase in the internal pressure of the eye, which can progressively and irreversibly damage the optic nerve, or the nerve responsible for transmitting visual information to the brain. . Thus there is a loss of the visual field that starts from the more peripheral portions progressively involving the central ones ». In Italy, according to the data, about 1 million and 200 thousand people are affected, and it represents the second cause of visual impairment and blindness. Yet, “only one in two patients is aware of having it, and one in five is at risk of losing their sight because, in most cases, glaucoma has no symptoms.” “Prevention is essential to cure this pathology. The diagnosis or diagnostic suspicion is always based on a direct clinical evaluation by the ophthalmologist “explains the president of Uici Terni, Daniele Maccaglia,” so it is very important that all citizens, especially those over 40, carry out a specific check. It is an invisible disease ».