Hey have you ever notice that most of the middle age persons always put a spectacle before going to start any near work like reding, writing etc. If you are the one who is finding the fact of this then this is the situation which is called presbyopia. A major cause of decrease in near vision which affects the middle age population. In this blog we are going learn about presbyopia and some treatment option for presbyopia. So, if we look at the origin of the word ‘PRESBYOPIA’ it came from two Greek word ‘presby’ which means an old man and ‘Opia’ means eye.
As par the clinical experts of eye the Optometrist and Ophthalmologists don’t consider it other refractive errors like myopia, hypermetropia etc., Besides it is considered as an anomaly of accommodation which is occur by aging process. Basically, in this condition the eyes gradually losing their ability to focus on near objects. Usually, the signs and symptoms of Presbyopia appears at the age of 40 but it can be appeared early in case of people those who of the spend most of the time of working hours in near work like watch makers, Goldsmith etc.
The signs and symptoms of Presbyopia are as follows,
# Initially there will be difficulty in reading after the end of day which, finally leads to discomfort in eyes while doing near work.
# Tendency to held reading objects further away form the eyes.
# Some people may also develop headache while doing near work.
# Need brighter light while doing near work.
These are the most of the signs which a presbypoic patient experience.
If the patient not treated for a long time, Patient may completely not prefer to do near work although this is very rare.
As we know convergence and accommodation both are two unique features of our human eyes. And accommodation is usually controlled by the ciliary muscles which is an intra ocular muscles of our eyes. In the middle age the ciliary muscles became weaker so the eyes are not able to focus on near objects like earlier. During this period of life due to aging the crystalline lens also became more thicker and it’s also loosed the ability to change its shape from concave to convex to focus on near objects. And all these condition leads to blurring of near vision which we known as presbyopia.
Now we are looking into the classification of Presbyopia shortly.
# Incipient Presbyopia: It is the earliest stages of presbyopia when the situation is just arrived.
# Functional Presbyopia: When the symptoms became more acquired and accommodation power more decreased and the patient needs a near correction.
# Absolute Presbyopia: The functional presbyopia became more acquired and results to Absolute Presbyopia. In this case of Presbyopia, the eyes completely loose it’s ability of accommodation virtually.
# Premature Presbyopia: Presbyopia can be also developed in early age. In case of people those who spend their most of the time of working hours doing near works. And this condition is called Premature presbyopia. Usually, the amplitude of accommodation decreased earlier in case of these peoples so the signs and symptoms of Presbyopia also show earlier in this kind of patient.
# Nocturnal Presbyopia: In this condition the patient usually not able to focus on near objects in dim light condition.
Treatment of Presbyopia:
Now days various treatment option for Presbyopia. In all of these options the basic mechanism is same The Optometrist or the Ophthalmologist will measure the amount of accommodation loose and prescribe suitable near adds according to the patients near work distance.
There as a rough estimation chart of addition power for Presbyopia most of the clinical personalities follow this chart but this chart can’t be follow in every cases.
The chart is as follows,
40 years +1.00DS
45 years +1.50DS
50 years +2.00DS
55 years +2.50DS
60 years +3.00DS
Above 60 years +3.00Ds to 3.5DS
The first and popular treatment option for presbyopia is till now spectacle correction. The spectacle correction can be given in various forms like near reading glass, Bifocals and progressive. Now days contact lens correction can be also given like bifocals, multifocal and mono vision contact lenses. Various refractive lens exchange option also available now days for the treatment of Presbyopia.
