De. Giaschi et al., LOSS OF SENSITIVITY TO MOTION-DEFINED FORM IN PATIENTS WITH PRIMARY OPEN-ANGLE GLAUCOMA AND OCULAR HYPERTENSION, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science,and vision., 13(4), 1996, pp. 707-716
During the past few years many researchers have attempted to find a ps
ychophysical test that will identify at an early stage patients at ris
k for developing glaucoma. We investigated the ability of a test of mo
tion-defined (MD) form recognition to discriminate between patients wi
th primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and control subjects and to iden
tify patients with ocular hypertension (OHT) at risk for developing gl
aucoma. Performance on two MD tests and three tests of static, luminan
ce-defined (LD) form recognition was compared. Speed thresholds for re
ading MD letters proved to be the most sensitive test of early glaucom
atous damage. 80% of POAG and 38% of OHT patients were abnormal on thi
s test. During a 3-year follow-up period, 50% of these OHT patients de
veloped glaucoma. These psychophysical findings support the hypothesis
of early motion deficits in glaucoma. (C) 1996 Optical Society of Ame
rica