For patients who are suffering from loss of near vision, East Valley Ophthalmology offers solutions that may include eyeglasses, monovision contact lenses, and monovision LASIK. Which option is best for you depends on several factors, including your age, eye health, and lifestyle preferences. An individual consultation is necessary to determine which near vision solution is right for you.
What causes the loss of near vision?
As a natural part of the aging process, the lens inside the eye loses its ability to change focus. Most people over the age of 40 become dependent on reading glasses to clearly see close objects. This condition is called presbyopia and is caused by the gradual hardening of the lens, which prevents the eye from focusing light on the retina when looking at close objects. It is a type of refractive error along with nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism.
People with normal vision when they were young could easily shift their focus from near objects to distant objects, seeing clearly at all distances. The gradual loss of vision usually becomes noticeable when you start having trouble with simple everyday tasks like reading, operating a smartphone or tablet, or working on a computer. Presbyopia typically worsens until around age 65.
What can be done about presbyopia?
If presbyopia is your only vision problem, by far the most common and simplest treatment for presbyopia is reading glasses. They can be bought without a prescription, but an eye exam should determine the specific power of reading glasses that you need. If you have nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism, your choices may include bifocal, trifocal, or progressive lens eyeglasses. A bifocal lens is split into two sections. The larger, primary section corrects for distance vision, while the smaller, secondary section allows you to see up close. Trifocals have three lens areas to correct for close-up, mid-range, and far vision. Progressive lenses function similarly, except that sections of the lens are more blended as opposed to the distinct zones that characterize bifocals and trifocals. Although a simple and relatively inexpensive option for correction, eyeglasses can be associated with hassles and aesthetic concerns, which is why some people opt for a permanent treatment through corrective surgery.
What is monovision?
Monovision is one option for presbyopia. This may be accomplished by wearing contact lenses, one that corrects only distance vision in one eye, and another that corrects only near vision in the other eye. The lens for distance is usually worn on the dominant eye. Monovision contact lenses enable individuals with presbyopia to perform routine near tasks without the need for reading glasses.
Patients who prefer not to wear contact lenses may qualify for monovision LASIK. As with contact lenses, this procedure corrects the dominant eye for distance vision while leaving the less-dominant eye nearsighted. The drawback is that distance vision with monovision LASIK is often not as crisp as it would be without the nearsightedness. Many people find this to be an acceptable tradeoff for improved near vision, as they can see well enough at all distances to perform tasks without corrective lenses.
Monovision LASIK is the most widely used surgical correction for presbyopia. The visual cortex of the brain learns to pay attention only to the image that it wants to see in focus, ignoring the image that is not in focus. In the hands of an experienced ophthalmologist, most patients do very well with monovision.
