Compliance is particularly relevant to glaucoma, a chronic disease. Visual loss often begins peripherally, with central vision often preserved until late in the disease. Meanwhile, patients must commit to taking multiple medications several times daily at regular intervals. These medications may have side effects ranging from minor and inconvenient to serious and disabling. All for a disease which often has no symptoms.
Many patients miss anywhere from an occasional dose to most of the prescribed regimen.
Others do not know how to take drops properly, and still others misuse the medications. Noncompliance can be defined as the intentional or accidental failure to comply with a physician's expressed or implied directions with regard to taking medications. The most advanced diagnostic and therapeutic advances techniques are of little importance if the patient is noncompliant. Noncompliance often leads to blindness in patients with glaucoma. Examples of Noncompliance Failure to take medications.