Overview
Introduction
A painful red eye with blurred vision or haloes around lights, headache, and nausea or vomiting is an acute angle closure crisis (AACC) until a markedly elevated IOP and other c...
A painful red eye with blurred vision or haloes around lights, headache, and nausea or vomiting is an acute angle-closure crisis (AACC) until a markedly elevated IOP and other causes have been assessed. The gastrointestinal symptoms can dominate the presentation, so a patient may initially be treated for migraine, gastroenteritis or an intracranial emergency while the eye is losing vision. The first nursing move is pattern recognition followed by rapid visual-acuity and IOP assessment and emergent ophthalmology consultation. Older resources may call the same presentation acute angle-closure glaucoma (AACG) or acute primary angle closure (APAC); current AAO terminology is AACC.