Presbyopia

Symptoms and Causes

Do you need reading glasses? Chances are you have presbyopia (senile farsightedness), an eye refractive abnormality in which a person cannot see small print or small objects at a close distance. Like gray hair and wrinkles, presbyopia is one of the age-related symptoms of the natural aging mechanism. The early symptoms of presbyopia eyes are on average seen in a person in their 40s and 45s. It is during this period that he or she begins to experience the first difficulties in handling small objects or reading

The term “presbyopia” comes from the Greek word πρέσβυς meaning “old man” or “old man” and the New Latin suffix “-opia” meaning “myopia”, and the literal translation would be “old eyes”.

While the exact cause of presbyopia is still the subject of research, it is the accepted theory that the muscle fibers around the eye’s natural lens thicken and lose elasticity, which reduces the eye’s ability to reshape the lens. As the eye’s natural lens becomes less flexible, the eye has less and less ability to focus on close objects. Trauma, lifestyle, and occupation, such as sitting in front of a computer for hours on end, can also play a role in the development of this condition.

Treatment Options

Presbyopia is sometimes informally called “the disease of the long arms,” because for a while it is possible to compensate for presbyopia by placing an object at arm’s length. But when this method no longer works, we have to think about the correction of presbyopia with the methods available in modern medicine.

Presbyopia surgery

If you do not want to wear glasses or contact lenses for one or another reason, then surgical treatment of presbyopia comes to the rescue. This method involves replacing the natural lens with an artificial one (intraocular lens). The artificial lens can be either simple or multifocal. Intraocular lenses (IOLs) are usually implanted during cataract removal, and some IOLs are designed to treat cataracts and presbyopia simultaneously.