Can Presbyopia Be Corrected? Everything You Need To Know

You’re approaching your mid-40s and have recently started to find that small fonts looks a little smaller, you’re squinting and holding your needle and thread a little further away than usual, or you’re bringing that newspaper to the window in order to be able to make out the print in the sunlight. 

It happens to the best of us – presbyopia, the natural age-related decline of our near focusing ability. The lens inside the eye begins to stiffen and lose its flexibility with time, meaning we can no longer easily adjust this lens to focus on objects as they come closer. The result is progressive difficulty with clearing your near vision. If you’re short-sighted you’ll find you prefer to remove your glasses to read more comfortably; if you’re long-sighted or have perfect distance vision, you’ll find your start to hold your reading material further and further away to keep it in focus. Can presbyopia be corrected requires a yes and no answer, depending on your idea of what correcting presbyopia means.

Can Presbyopia Be Corrected Permanently?  

There are various eye treatment options when it comes to correcting presbyopia and allowing you to focus clearly up close. It’s important to understand that correcting presbyopia is not synonymous with reversing presbyopia; despite medical advancements in all fields including ophthalmology, scientists have not yet discovered a way to perfectly restore the eye’s near focusing ability back to its younger days. However, the symptoms of presbyopia, namely, the difficulties with near vision, can be alleviated with either optical or surgical means. 

Optical Options for Correcting Presbyopia

Currently, the most common way of addressing presbyopia is with the use of glasses. This may be in the form of single vision reading glasses or with multifocal or bifocal lenses. A lesser known method of improving your reading vision is with the use of multifocal contact lenses or an arrangement known as monovision, which involves one eye being fitted with a lens for long distance while the other eye is corrected with a contact lens for reading. It’s important to understand that wearing optical aids for presbyopia such as glasses or contact lenses does not cause damage to your eye. Treatment options for presbyopia will neither accelerate nor decelerate the progression of presbyopia, despite some people believing that wearing their reading glasses too often will further weaken their vision. 

There are some claims that certain eye exercises can delay the onset of presbyopia, slow its progression, or even reverse it. While these exercises would not be harmful to the eye or your vision, they are not evidence-based or have been substantiated and are not supported by the eyecare profession as offering any significant benefit. 

Can Presbyopia Be Corrected Surgically?

For people who lead very active lifestyles, find glasses and contact lenses inconvenient, and are not too squeamish at the thought of elective surgery on the eye, treatment options are available in the form of refractive surgery. Though refractive surgical procedures have traditionally aimed to provide excellent long-distance vision with the patient still being dependent on reading glasses after, ophthalmology has now advanced to the point where eye surgeons can offer presbyopic patients greatly improved freedom from glasses and contacts. 

Presbyond laser blended vision is a modification of the popular LASIK procedure. Using precise computer-guided calculations, a laser tool is used to reshape the front surface of the eye known as the cornea. This redirects the passage of light through the eye, thus changing its point of focus and providing clear vision for a specified viewing distance. Laser blended vision provides a balance of both distance and near vision to each eye, correcting the dominant eye with a greater degree of long-distance vision and the non-dominant eye with primarily near vision. 

The implantation of a multifocal intraocular lens (IOL) in place of your natural anatomical lens is another refractive surgery technique available for presbyopic patients looking to reduce their need for reading glasses. The IOL may be implanted during cataract surgery or in the absence of a cataract, which is then known as a refractive lens exchange procedure. Newer types of IOLs, including designs that are able to flex their shape slightly to mimic natural near focus, are also beginning to emerge on the market.

After undergoing refractive surgery, there may be a few select instances you still reach for your reading glasses, such as discerning small print in dim lighting, but on the whole most people are very content with their unaided reading vision post-operatively. 

Call us on (03) 9070 3580 today.

Note: Any surgical or invasive procedure carries risks. Before proceeding, you should seek a second opinion from an appropriately qualified health practitioner.

References

National Center for Biotechnology Information – National Library of Medicine – Intraocular lens correction of presbyopia
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6432854/

Healthline – What to Know About Monovision Correction and How to Adjust
https://www.healthline.com/health/eye-health/monovision