This year, the theme for World Health day focuses on Hypertension and the range of cardiovascular conditions. The recognition of high blood pressure, holds very special significance to the Caribbean, particularly because the region is one part of the World which is in the grips of an epidemic of chronic non communicable diseases, such as Hypertension (and Hypertensive Retinopathy), Diabetes (and diabetic retinopathy), Heart disease, cancers and glaucoma.<\/p>\n
The Caribbean Council For The Blind (CCB-Eye Care Caribbean) encourages everyone to monitor their blood pressure, because (not only is elevated blood pressure a key contributor to cardiovascular diseases) High blood pressure is an important cause of blindness and visual impairment. <\/p>\n
Medical Drs and other health providers should encourage their patients to <\/span>have their eyes examined for possible signs of hypertensive retinopathy. <\/span>Most importantly, Ophthalmologists, Optometrists Refractionists and other <\/span>eye health providers should familiarize themselves with the signs and <\/span>symptoms of Hypertensive Retinopathy, so that they can encourage their <\/span>patients to take steps to reduce and control their blood pressure. The only <\/span>cure for Hypertensive Retinopathy, is a well controlled blood pressure.<\/span><\/p>\n In recognition of World Health Day 2013, CCB has invited two of the Region’s leading Consultant Ophthalmologists to write short pieces on hypertensive Retinopathy. This week end, the pieces by Hazel Shillingford-Ricketts (Commonwealth Of Dominica) and Gavin Henry (Jamaica) will be featured as part of our World Health Day bulletin. Coming to your in-box on Saturday 6th April. In the mean time, for images of eye health providers at work across the Caribbean, visit a special collection of photos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year, the theme for World Health day focuses on Hypertension and the range of cardiovascular conditions. The recognition of high blood pressure, holds very special significance to the Caribbean, particularly because the region is one part of the World which is in the grips of an epidemic of chronic non communicable diseases, such as Hypertension (and Hypertensive Retinopathy), Diabetes (and diabetic retinopathy), Heart disease, cancers and glaucoma. The Caribbean Council For The Blind (CCB-Eye Care Caribbean) encourages everyone to monitor their blood pressure, because (not only is elevated blood pressure a key contributor to cardiovascular diseases) High blood pressure is an important cause of blindness and visual impairment. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-health-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}