Understanding available options for glaucoma management

Jessica Steen, OD, FAAO, assistant professor at Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry where she serves as Director of the Glaucoma Services, shares key takeaways from her presentation, "Problem Solving in Glaucoma Management," which she gave during the 2022 American Optometric Association (AOA) Optometry's Meeting in Chicago.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:

Hi, I'm Dr. Jessica Steen, assistant professor at Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry, where I serve as director of the glaucoma service.

We are at Optometry's Meeting 2022 in Chicago, and I've had the opportunity to discuss problem solving in glaucoma management.

Now, the key takeaways here are to think about patients from a holistic perspective, understanding that there are many routes to lowering intraocular pressure that really include therapeutic measures, include procedure-based therapeutic measures, procedure-based laser therapies, and MIGS, as well as more traditional incisional glaucoma procedures.

We have to think about this from a big picture approach. You know, really understanding what option in particular circumstances may be best for your patients. Keep in mind, management of the ocular surface in patients who have glaucoma is something that is central to patient adherence, as well as quality of life.

We have many challenging clinical circumstances that arise and when they do, one of the takeaways is to keep in mind really digging into first principles, evaluating your patient top to bottom, including gonioscopy, and assessing the risk factors for disease development and disease progression.