Psychological Abnormality and Glaucoma

Abstract

As a part of the “integrated” human body, the eye will inevitably be affected by the “integrated” environment. In this “integrated” environment, in addition to the most commonly mentioned physiological conditions such as blood pressure, breathing, and hormones, the psychological environment also affects the local condition of eyes and the occurrence of the disease, which is the idea of “integrative ophthalmology.” Glaucoma is an ancient disease, which is only initially regarded as an independent ocular disease. The research related to glaucoma is also limited to the local anatomy, and the changes of pathological and physiological function. As early as the nineteenth century, people have realized that glaucoma has certain relevance with psychological factors. With the development of psychological research methods, the study of the correlation between glaucoma and psychological factors is deepened accordingly. How does the psychological factor affect the onset and progression of glaucoma? How do these two situations affect each other? At least in the traditional anatomy and physiology, these two situations have nothing to do with each other. This is exactly what we should consider from the perspective of integrated medicine. In this section, the psychological personality and emotional characteristics of glaucoma patients are summarized, and the commonly used assessment methods are introduced. Moreover, the relationship between disease development and psychological characteristics is explained. After reading this section, it is expected that readers can realize that the adjustment of the patient’s mood can be used as one of the adjuvant treatment methods of glaucoma. In the future, the psychological state of patients may be consciously taken into account in the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma.