For the last week health officials were answering questions and spreading information for Glaucoma Awareness Week.

The reason why its important for people to learn awareness is so people understand the warning signs, because you can slow it down, but its irreversible.

"In the early stages of the disease it can be a pretty kind of grey area," said Shawn Lins, an Optometrist at Primary Eye Care in Moose Jaw. "A person can be you know a suspect of it and you know we're not really sure they have until we gather sometimes a years worth of data so its not always a black and white diagnosis."

Also, there's a small number of people who are diagnosed with the condition, but the number increases with age.

"I believe its somewhere between 2 to 4 percent of the general population, and that does get higher as we get into elderly patients," Lins added. "I should say usually with glaucoma what happens is the peripheral vision is usually affected first and again its kind of subtle until it gets quite advanced and with Glaucoma you can't restore the vision that's lost you can really only prevent further vision loss."

So, its important to look for the warning signs. Lins also added that adults should go in for eye check ups every second year, and children and youth should go in every year.