"I think the silent nature of glaucoma is something that people need to be aware of – that they don’t know that have or don’t have glaucoma. There’s no pain. There are no visual symptoms until very late in the disease," says Wallace Alward, M.D., UI Health Care ophthalmologist.

The best defense against glaucoma is a regular eye exam, which includes an exam of the optic nerve. People over age 50, African-Americans over 40, and people with a family history of glaucoma are at the highest risk.

" Unlike a lot of things that can cause blindness, it’s a very treatable disease. So making a diagnosis is not just of academic importance, but it’s important because if we find somebody with glaucoma, we can treat them, we can prevent them from ever losing vision in almost all cases," says Alward.

" Treatment for glaucoma can involve something as simple as eye drops or as complicated as laser procedures or micro-surgery," he says.

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Wallace Alward, M.D.