Having Trouble Seeing Up Close?

A young, healthy eye has an elastic lens that is able to flex as needed to focus on near objects. In children and young adults, light from a nearby object enters the eye, the cornea refracts the light and the lens and its supporting structures change shape to adapt for the decreased focal length of the object. To visualize this, imagine a camera focusing its lens on a close-by object.

However, with age, the lens and its supporting structures lose their flexibility and are unable to change shape as needed to focus on nearby objects. This is known as presbyopia, and it usually sets in around the age of 45. Presbyopia is largely unavoidable.

If you are in your forties and have developed presbyopia, you might find that you start to hold reading material or your smartphone at an arm’s length in order to see clearly. Or you may compensate by picking up a pair of reading glasses or “readers” at the drugstore to help you discern text from books, newspapers, your smartphone or a restaurant menu.

How Berks Eye Physicians and Surgeons Can Help Those with Presbyopia

If you want a solution more permanent than reading glasses, you may want to consider one of the following:

• Multifocal contact lenses, which facilitate clear vision and focus up-close and at a distance.
• Monovision contact lenses, one of which will be designed for close vision and the other for distance vision. The brain then learns to toggle between the two as needed.
• Monovision laser vision correction, during which the surgeon corrects the distance vision of one eye (normally the dominant eye) and corrects the near vision of the other eye.
• Presbyopia-correcting implant lenses, which permanently replace the eye’s natural lens and are placed during cataract surgery or refractive lens exchange. Some of these lenses are categorized as multifocal lenses, which have multiple focusing powers within the same lens. Others are categorized as accommodating lenses, which work with the contractions of the surrounding eye muscles to flatten for clear distance vision and thicken and curve for near vision.

Contact Berks Eye Physicians and Surgeons Today

For more information about presbyopia and the available treatment options, please contact the team at Berks Eye Physicians and Surgeons. Call or email us today.