Presbyopia and Aging
Contact your Southaven, MS Optometrist to Learn More About Treatment Options
Presbyopia is a vision impairment that comes with age in which focusing on close objects becomes significantly reduced. As people around the world are living longer a significant number of individuals develop presbyopia, which is an unavoidable result of your aging eye.
Your natural lenses bend when focusing on objects at differing distances. Some theorize that as you grow older, that curvature diminishes since the natural lenses harden. This condition is known as presbyopia and is often first noticed by an increased difficulty focusing on things at close range. This often can start to happen any time after the age of 40. Sufferers often deal with near vision impairment by holding the paper away from their eyes or standing at a distance from the object they want to focus on. Shifting from focusing on far away things to nearer ones can often be strenuous for those with presbyopia. The tension might add further discomfort by causing eye strain, fatigues or headaches.
The most popular corrections for presbyopia are bifocal lenses or progressive addition lenses (PALs). A bifocal lens has two points of focus, one is for distance vision and the other part of the lens is for seeing things that are close by. Progressive lenses work similarly to bifocal lenses, but they have a more subtle transition between the separate prescriptions and have no clear line between them. Wearers will more easily shift their focus, as they would if they had uninhibited eyesight. Another option is reading glasses which, unlike bifocals or PALs which are worn continually, are used only as needed.
If contact lenses are preferable, there are other options such as multifocal contacts. Different people adjust in different ways to multifocal lenses, so it may take a while to decide if and in what combination they work for you.
There are also surgical options that could be considered that may be worth discussing with your optometrist. A lot of patients are most successful combining options for presbyopia. Also, because your eyesight will likely get worse as you age, it is likely that you will need to continually adjust your correction. With the population growing older, there is quite a bit of experimental treatment on the market currently to discover more effective solutions for patients with presbyopia.
If you are beginning to notice signs of presbyopia, schedule an appointment with your Southaven, MS eye doctor. A return to normal vision is only a quick call away!
