Everything about Presbyopia

What is presbyopia?

Presbyopia is the normal loss of the ability to focus at near that occurs with age. Most people begin to notice the effects after age 40, when they start having trouble seeing small print clearly. These changes continue until around age 55, when the changes plateau. Presbyopia is caused by the gradual thickening and loss of flexibility of the natural lens inside your eye. With less elasticity, the eye has a harder time focusing up close.

Signs of presbyopia

Some of the symptoms of presbyopia are:

• Having to hold your reading material further to see clearly (phone, books, menus, labels, etc.)
• Having to squint to make reading clear
• Takes a few seconds to change focus, e.g. from typing a text message on your phone, to looking up and walking
• Poor vision in low light areas
• Feeling tired of eye while studying
• Feeling headache and tiredness while doing things that need to focus on the eye.

What happens if I don’t treat presbyopia?

If your presbyopia is not corrected, you can experience:

• Increased short-sightedness
• Increased astigmatism
• Significant difference in prescription between the two eyes.
• Trouble with adapting to new prescriptions
• Blurry near vision
• Headaches and sore eyes
• Visual fatigue

Presbyopia treatment

Reading glasses: If presbyopia is your only vision problem (you do not have nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism), glasses may be all you need. Reading glasses help correct close-up vision problems by bending (refracting) light before it enters your eye. They can be bought without a prescription, but the specific power of reading glasses that you need should be determined by an eye exam.

Bifocals, trifocals or progressive lenses: If you already wear eyeglasses for other vision problems, now you might need bifocals, trifocals, or progressive lenses.

• Bifocals correct for close-up and far vision. A line, which may or may not be visible, divides the lens. The bottom of the lens refracts light for close up vision. The top portion refracts light to allow you to see distant objects.
• Trifocals have three lens areas to correct for close-up, mid-range and far vision.
• Progressive lenses correct vision like bifocals and trifocals. But instead of a line that divides each refractive area, refraction changes gradually in the lens from top to bottom.

Contact lenses: Some people prefer to wear contact lenses rather than eyeglasses. There are two types of contact lenses that help presbyopia:

• Monovision contacts. These correct one eye for distance vision and the other for close-up vision. You need to adapt to monovision lenses and train your brain to see this way. You may find you lose your ability to judge something’s distance or speed with monovision lenses.
• Multifocal contacts. These lenses have several rings or zones set at different powers. With this design, you are actually using both near and far vision at the same time. However, your brain learns to automatically select the right focus for what you want to see. You may find that using a multifocal lens makes your vision less sharp than when using a monofocal lens.

Refractive surgery: Some people decide to have surgery to achieve monovision. This can reduce their need for glasses for near and far objects. Using a laser, an ophthalmologist reshapes the cornea for clear far vision in one eye and close-up vision in the other. In many ways, this is like wearing monovision contact lenses. Your ophthalmologist may suggest that you try monovision lenses before having LASIK surgery. That way you can tell if monovision is a comfortable option for you.

Reference:

https://www.graceandvision.com.au/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-presbyopia/

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/diseases/presbyopia-treatment