~ ~ Welcome to Energie Eyecare ~ ~

Improve Your Vision With Presbyopia Correction

Presbyopia or somethings known as adult longsightedness are people whom finds it hard to focus on objects too close to them as it appears blurry to them. Presbyopia typically affects people who are 40 years and older. This is different from hyperopia, which are people whom are not able to focus on near object at a young age as a result of their eyeball being shorter than normal.

Many people finds presbyopia very irritating. For those whom has good vision, they now have to wear glasses when they read near. For those whom are myopic and already need vision correction device for far, may now need a separate pair of glasses for near vision. This is especially inconvenient as work often requires them to use the computers, read their handphone messages and so on.

Fortunately, with presbyopia correction, it is possible to treat this condition and improve your vision. Read on to know more about the various symptoms and treatments on presbyopia, so that you can then determine the best presbyopia treatment for you.

Symptoms And Treatments On Presbyopia

Here are the signs and symptoms of presbyopia:

• Not being able to read clearly and having to hold your reading material at arm's length so as to focus better.
• Headaches and eyestrain when performing detailed tasks and near work such as writing or sewing.
• Constant eye fatigue when performing near work.

If you notice any of these symptoms if you are over 40 years of age, it is quite likely that you suffer from presbyopia.

Causes Of Presbyopia

The main cause of presbyopia is believed to be age related. As a person ages, the proteins in their natural eye lens undergo changes, thereby making the lens harder and less elastic as the years go by. The ciliary muscles around the eye lens also weaken with age and are thus unable to contract as required. All these factors cause the eye lens to lose its elasticity and flexibility. When performing near visual work, the lens and muscles has to be more flexible to focus on near objects. As a result of the loss of elasticity and flexibility, the eye is unable to focus on close objects, thus leading to presbyopia.

Options For Presbyopia Treatment

The most common wear of presbyopia treatment is the prescription of corrective lenses. However, besides the inconvenience of having to wear corrective lenses, the patient is likely to need to change their prescription lenses every 6 ¨C 12 months as their eyes age further. This disadvantage similarly applies for presbyopia surgery. Only vision therapy that enhance the healthy function of the eye, especially the eye's accommodation system is able to delay the onset of presbyopia. Details of these three options are further presented below.

Presbyopia correction can be achieved in the following ways:

1. Corrective eyewear for presbyopia repair:

The following types of eyewear can be used to treat presbyopia:

• Reading Glasses: These are also known as plus lenses, and have just one prescription in the lenses, which is for presbyopia correction. Plus lenses are performs like magnifying glasses that magnifies the object to be focused, thus reducing the need for tensing our eye's optical lenses and frames. Reading glasses are generally used by people who do not have any other vision problems apart from presbyopia, or by those who are already fitted with contact lenses to correct their other vision defect.
• Bifocals: Bifocals have two types of lenses in one spectacle itself. The upper part of the lens is for the correction of nearsightedness, while the lower part of the lens of a different prescription according to your presbyopia prescription. Usually the lower part is of a lower minus prescription than the top part so that the image will appear nearer, and hence less need for eye's accommodation.
• Progressive Addition Lenses (PALs): These lenses correct presbyopia in the same manner as bifocals. The main difference between bifocals and PALs is in their looks. While PALs provide a gradual visual transition from one prescription to the other without any visible lines separating the two, bifocals offer a more abrupt transition between the two types of corrective lenses and you can clearly see where the two lenses meet.

By using such optical lenses, it is possible to make the shape of your natural lens more convex; thereby creating additional focal points and helping your eyes focus on close objects.

• Multifocal Contact Lenses: These are also a very popular presbyopia treatment. These contact lenses are available in gas permeable or soft lens varieties.
• Monovision Contact Lenses: If you opt for monovision lenses, you will be prescribed a presbyopia prescription for one eye and a distance prescription for the other. Your brain learns to use the correct prescription depending upon the task at hand. It is quite common for users to complains of headache because the brain requires getting use to.

Disadvantage of corrective lenses : Once you understand the cause of presbyopia, you will understand why as one age, their presbyopic condition worsen as their eyes' losses its elasticity and flexibility further.

2. Presbyopia surgery: Various surgical options for presbyopia repair are available nowadays. Here's a brief look at them:

• Monovision with LASIK: With the help of laser technology, monovision will be produced in your eyes. This means your dominant eye will primarily have far vision, whereas the other eye will have near vision. Some ophthalmologist are known to correct one eye to good vision and but intentionally leave the other eye with -0.75D refractive errors during lasik in preparation of the on-coming presbyopia for their middle age clients.

With such presbyopia correction, you will not need to wear any eyeglasses for presbyopia. However, it is best to try monovision contact lenses before opting for such surgery so that you can be completely sure your eyes can adjust to monovision.

• Conductive Keratoplasty (CK): With controlled radio frequency energy, the collagen around your cornea is shrunk. Your cornea thus becomes steeper and your eyeball is lengthened, both of which help to correct presbyopia. CK surgery is generally performed in one eye only. Mild laser heat can also be used to perform the same surgery. In that case the surgery is called Laser Thermal Keratoplasty (LTK).

Disadvantage of Lasik for Presbyopia : Once you understand the causes of presbyopia, you will begin to understand that it is only a temporary solution. A few years after the lasik operation, the patient may find their vision deteriorating again due to the ageing of their eyes. Their option then would be to put on glasses again, or go for lasik again.

In addition to the above, various other surgical options for presbyopia repair include Surgical Reversal of Presbyopia, Laser Presbyopia Reversal, Corneal Inlays, and Refractive Lens Exchange. However, most of these are still awaiting the approval of the FDA to be recognized as approved surgeries for presbyopia treatment.

3. Presbyopia training your eyes:

Vision therapy, especially those that improves the accommodation system of the eyes, are an effective means of delaying the on-set and progression of presbyopia. However, vision therapy requires a lot of determination and discipline as it generally requires almost 30 minutes of daily practice. However, with the aid of modern technology such as EyeRelax, it is able to achieve better effectiveness at a shorter time. EyeRelax makes use of the latest visual fields research, enabling it to improve both the retina activity(visual neuro) and accommodative system. EyeRelax is hence very successful at presbyopia repair.

With the help of these devices, you can train your accommodation system and improve the healthy function of the eyes, thus retaining the flexibility of our lenses and eye muscles. It is extremely helpful for those with onset presbyopia to achieve presbyopia correction, and those already suffering to improve their eyesight, and also delay the progression of it. In fact, by using these devices for presbyopia training, your eyes benefit greatly as overall vision is enhanced.