The green glaucoma cricket championship: An innovative glaucoma titled based cricket match initiative for screening and promoting awareness on glaucoma disease process and compliance

Abstract

World glaucoma week is celebrated annually in the 2nd week of March, to raise awareness on glaucoma. In the light of the existing manpower and resource constraints, we propose this novel concept of glaucoma awareness, through the green glaucoma cricket championship. The overarching goal of this cricket championship was to screen the general public attending the event with noncontact tonometry, confocal fundus scanner and portable virtual reality perimetry; and refer suspicious patients to the base hospital. Every single protocol of this cricket match was specifically designed with a glaucomatous nomenclature, so that the public gathering, can be educated with those terminologies at various phases of the match. Two hundred and twenty people visited during the 3 h awareness cricket match. A total of 154 people above the age of 40 years were screened for glaucoma, of which 15 (9.7%) were found to be glaucoma suspects, and were referred to the base hospital. Ten out of 15 (66.6%) glaucoma suspects presented to the hospital during the glaucoma awareness week 2020, of which 4 (40%) were confirmed to have glaucoma. This manuscript highlights the promotion of awareness and knowledge toward glaucoma, to the general public through cricket, because in India cricket is like religion and Indian's love for the sport is unparalleled.

Keywords

• cricket
• glaucoma awareness
• glaucoma titled-based cricket match
• green lapel ribbon