Comment on "Short-term effects of relaxation music on patients suffering from primary open-angle glaucoma".

Dear editor

We read the current study “Short-term effects of relaxation music on patients suffering from primary open-angle glaucoma” by Bertelmann and Strempel, with great interest.1 The authors investigated if relaxation music had a positive effect on glaucoma. We congratulate the authors for this innovative study and want to make some contributions that may widen the impression area of this study.

In this study, relaxation music showed to decrease intraocular pressure (IOP) in glaucoma patients, while there was no decrease in the healthy control group. This finding indicates that psychological background can influence glaucoma. The relationship of Type A personality with some diseases has been known about for quite some time. Type A personality is characterized by an aggressive nature, a competitive drive, a sense of urgency, and a hostile temperament. Individuals who carry this kind of personality have been shown to have an increased risk of coronary heart disease, peptic ulcer, and central serous chorioretinopathy.2–4 Bubella et al also showed that a high amount of glaucoma patients have Type A behavior.5

We believe that evaluating IOP change after listening to relaxation music is a good method of identifying if psychologic background can influence glaucoma. Patients with Type A personality are expected to be more anxious. Thus, these patients may react much more to relaxation music. With this in mind, we wonder if a higher amount of glaucoma patients in this study have a Type A personality. If authors can correspond with patients in future studies, they could identify the amount of glaucoma patients who have a Type A personality through a questionnaire. We also wonder if a decrease in IOP is higher in glaucoma patients who have a Type A personality than patients who have not.

We would like to thank Kaya et al for their comments on our recent publication entitled “Short-term effects of relaxation music on patients suffering from primary open-angle glaucoma”, which we read with keen interest. We absolutely agree with the thoughts expressed about glaucoma patients with Type A personality. We suggest creating a survey in regards to patients’ personality type for any upcoming study within this field of research. It will be interesting to figure out if these patients may have an additional benefit from various relaxation techniques on IOP measurements.