Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt

You see you don't see something. This is a bad joke persons affected will scarcely laugh about. And yet they could laugh if they had seen an ophthalmologist in time to have their eyes checked up. For an important indicator for the glaucoma is the intraocular pressure which can be measured indirectly with specific measuring instruments. Do you press your finger now and again on the tyres of your bicycle? The way conventional tonometers flatten a small area of the eyeball to determine the intraocular pressure is not very different. In the case of an air impulse tonometer anaesthetization of the cornea can even be totally dispensed with. It dents in the eye with a short, strong air jet and automatically displays the measurement result. A long time before the outbreak of the disease proper, first symptoms can thus be detected. The PTB offers advice in the development and testing of the measuring instruments.