PRESBYOPIA
Presbyopia
Presbyopia is when you have trouble seeing things up close because the lens in your eye becomes less flexible as you get older. It’s a normal part of aging that typically starts in your 40s. Signs of presbyopia include fuzzy vision when looking at nearby objects, along with headaches and eye strain. To improve your vision, you can use glasses, contact lenses, or consider surgery.
What is presbyopia?
Presbyopia makes it harder to see things like small print or objects nearby, but wearing glasses or using other corrective measures can help improve your vision.
As you get older, usually around 40 years old and onwards, you might start having trouble seeing things up close. This problem is called presbyopia. It tends to get worse until you’re in your mid-60s. You might notice it’s harder to read or do things up close, like using your phone. You might need to hold things farther away to see them clearly. Sometimes, this can give you headaches or make your eyes feel tired and sore.
Presbyopia happens as you get older and is a normal part of aging, not a sickness. It’s a common vision issue that eye doctors can fix easily with glasses, contacts, or surgery.
How common is presbyopia?
Presbyopia is something a lot of people have. Around the world, about 1.8 billion folks had it in 2015. Experts think this number will go up to 2.1 billion by 2030.
What causes presbyopia?
As you age, changes happen to your eyes that can cause a condition called presbyopia. When you’re younger, your eye lens is flexible and can easily change shape to focus on things up close or far away. This flexibility helps light land on the back of your eye so you can see clearly.
As you get older, your lens becomes less flexible. It struggles to focus light properly, especially on close-up objects. This starts to happen in your 40s and usually settles down by your mid-60s.
Imagine your eye as a camera. Just like a camera lens can autofocus, your eye lens works with the clear outer part of your eye (called the cornea) to focus light. Here’s how it works:
1.The cornea bends light as it enters your eye.
- There’s a tiny muscle around your lens that can either tighten or relax. This muscle changes the shape of your lens to focus on things. It relaxes for far-away objects and tightens for close-up ones.
- Light lands on the back of your eye, which has a tissue layer called the retina. The retina turns light into signals that your brain understands as images.
- As you age, your lens keeps growing. New layers of cells form, making it thicker and less flexible. This makes it harder for light to focus properly on the retina, causing blurriness when you look at things up close.
How is presbyopia diagnosed?
An eye doctor can find out if you have presbyopia by giving you an eye test. During this test, they’ll check how well you see things at different distances. This helps them figure out if you have presbyopia, astigmatism, or if you’re nearsighted or farsighted.
