Book an appointmentWhat is presbyopia or tired eyesight?
Presbyopia or tired eyesight is a physiological condition that occurs with age (usually starting at the age of 40 years old), in which the eye experiences a progressive decrease in the ability to focus on nearby objects.
Why is it produced?
As the years go by, the crystalline lens undergoes a series of changes with which it loses elasticity and gains rigidity, which hinders the phenomenon of visual accommodation (changing its shape to focus on objects). This loss of ability to focus gives rise to eyestrain.
This condition usually begins around the age of 40, and usually evolves for about 20 years, until the ability to focus on close objects is completely lost.
This is presbyopia or tired eyesight
How is presbyopia manifested?
The most typical manifestations of presbyopia is the need to focus moving away texts, mobile phones, and other objects to see or read them clearly (since they cannot be focused up close), as well as the need for good lighting.
In addition, patients present accommodative asthenopia with reading (eye strain), which manifests as headache, blurred vision after reading, irritation, and tiredness.
Presbyopia treatments
There is no curative treatment for presbyopia, but there are different procedures to improve the patient’s vision and quality of life.
Classically, tired eyesight has been treated with near vision glasses to mainly solve the difficulty in reading.
Today there are different types of lenses to treat the individual needs of each patient:
- Bifocal lenses: special to correct far and near vision.
- Trifocal lenses: intended to correct focus at a far, medium and near distance.
- Progressive or multifocal lenses: they are designed so that the upper part of the lens corrects distance vision, the lower part corrects near vision, and the central part is progressive to cover all distances.
If you do not want optical correction with glasses or contact lenses, you can opt for surgical treatments that affect the cornea or lens:
- At the corneal level, laser surgery can be performed to modify the curvature of the cornea, increase the depth of focus, and thus compensate for the lack of accommodation of the crystalline lens.
- Also at the level of the cornea, a multifocal lens can be implanted so that, like the laser, it increases the depth of focus and compensates for the refractory error of the crystalline lens.
However, these techniques at the level of the cornea have not yet reached levels of safety and stability to perform them systematically.
On the other hand, at the level of the lens, a procedure similar to cataract surgery can be performed and later replace the lens with a multifocal intraocular lens, which is a highly secure method.
Presbyopia prevention
Presbyopia cannot be prevented, as it is something that occurs with age. However, it is important to carry out routine ophthalmological check-ups starting at 40 years of age, in order to detect and treat this pathology on time.
Summary
Debut
Presbyopia appears around 40 years of age.
Symptoms
Visual fatigue and difficulty focusing on close objects.
Revision
It is recommended to carry out ophthalmological check-ups from the fourth decade of life to detect this pathology, in addition to others associated with age.
Prevention
Presbyopia cannot be prevented as it inevitably occurs with age.
