How Presbyopia Affects Individuals with Refractive Errors

Presbyopia seems to be inevitable as our eyes age. It impacts people at different times and depending on the state of the cornea and any existing refractive errors, can impact in different ways.

Presbyopia in Farsighted Patients

Farsighted people can see better at a distance than they can close up. These patients find that loss of accommodation, or ability to focus on objects near their eyes, becomes very evident.

This is because a farsighted person has to accommodate to see clearly at distance; but when they try to focus on close-up things they must throw in even more accommodation.

Because farsighted individuals have a greater demand or need for accommodation, and the ability of the eye to accommodate decreases with age, Optilase often find that patients with hyperopia or farsightedness experience presbyopia at a much earlier age.

Presbyopia in Nearsighted Patients

Nearsighted individuals, on the other hand, are better at seeing close-up and instead have trouble seeing objects in the distance. These patients find they can last longer before they need reading glasses.

This is because the eye can focus well on objects close to it, although if they need to wear corrective eyewear to correct their distance vision they will start to notice the loss of accommodation, and presbyopia.

If there is enough of a degree of nearsightedness, or myopia, the patient can just take off his glasses in order to read! They might never need reading glasses at all.

Post-Refractive Surgery

Individuals who were near-sighted but underwent a refractive vision correction procedure will find their accommodative requirements would be the same as individuals who never wore glasses, because the eye has already been corrected for distance and the nearsightedness eliminated.

The Solution to Presbyopia

If you are having difficulty reading print from near objects-your newspaper; mobile phone; menus and jar labels-you probably have presbyopia. A stiffening of the lens caused by ageing, your eye can no longer accommodate the visionary requirements necessary to focus on near objects.

There is a choice of corneal inlays available from Optilase that can solve the problem of presbyopia. To see if you are a candidate for either procedure, and to find out how best to correct your eyesight without having to rely on corrective eyewear any more, book a free consultation at Optilase by calling +353 1 223 8821 or see www.optilase.com