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Face presbyopia with style. (Photo: Insidesocial.com)
Have you wondered how you can keep your arms from getting shorter when you read the menu? Or how you can keep your food from getting blurry? Or how you can see your spreadsheets clearly without pushing your lap top futher away? If you’ve been pondering these questions, you're probably in the early stages of presbyopia; better known as age related vision loss.
They say there are the only two sure things in life. Anyone past the age of 45 knows there is a third thing – reading glasses. As we age, the lens inside our eye becomes less flexible and able to accommodate to see objects up close. This condition is called presbyopia. By the age of 55, most of us lose most of our accommodation ability.
The simplest solution is reading glasses. Even though reading glasses improve near vision, it is important not to jump into reading glasses that are too strong for your age. Otherwise your own lens will work less and lose its accommodating ability faster, making you more dependent on reading glasses. Drug store glasses start at +1.0. This is too strong if you are in your mid-forties. You may need to visit an optometrist and let them transition you into reading glasses gradually, starting with +0.5. This way, you will keep your eye muscles working longer.
If you wear glasses for distance vision, a bifocal segment may be added to improve near vision. If you were contact lenses, several options are possible – reading glasses over your contacts, monovision contacts, or bifocal or multifocal contacts. With monovision, your dominant eye is set to see distance and the other eye is set to see near. In patients who are successful with monovision, the brain learns to select the clearest image for viewing.
Surgical options include monovision procedures using laser such as LASIK or PRK (photorefractive keratectomy) and corneal reshaping using radiofrequency waves, such as CK (conductive keratoplasty).
More recent surgical breakthroughs include refractive lens exchange (RLE), a procedure that most closely resembles restoration of your own lens function. In RLE, a sophisticated intraocular lens replaces your natural lens to improve both distance and near vision. Many intraocular lens designs are available, including multifocal or diffractive lenses, such as AcrySof ReStOR ReZoom, and TECNIS, allowing patients to view small objects up close. The latest generation of dynamically-focused intraocular lenses, such as Crystalens HD, can even mimic the flexibility of your own lens when it was young.
For more information please visit these resources:
American Academy of Ophthalmology
American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery
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