Glaucoma disease and care. : An anthropological study

Abstract

This case study exposes the glaucoma illness experience from anthropological perspective and narrative approach. Glaucoma is a chronic ophthalmological disease that at the beginning is asymptomatic, so on some occasions seeking care is late. From biomedicine, the treatment is pharmacologic and surgical but people use other health cares in a pluralism medical context that is a fundamental element for confronting the illness. The narrative of a sufferer was co-constructed with interviews and participant observation; it shows a difficult process of resignification of previous experiences of visual problems, perception of symptoms, affectations in daily life and difficulties in receiving care. In the illness, experience intervened socioeconomic circumstances, the international migration context, and possibilities of receiving social support. Therapeutic elections were not limited to biomedical control, the sufferer sought to reduce the suffering caused by the sudden outbreak of the disease, carrying out self-care practices and using alternative medicines.