Age-related vision changes and treatments
Presbyopia is to some content inevitable in people above 40, which causes individuals difficult in managing up close tasks. As people grow older, presbyopia also advances. As presbyopia develops, people may be forced to keep more than one pair of plastic eyeglasses or change glasses with a higher prescription. Solutions to presbyopia include reading glasses, multifocal contact lenses or $10 eyeglasses, monovision LASIK and conductive keratoplasty.
About half of all 65-year-old Americans suffer some degree of cataracts, and the number of cataract patients will reach 30 million by 2020. There are so large a number of cataracts cases that this eye disease has been considered as a normal ageing change. Cataract surgery is the most widely applied treatment, which removes cloudy cataracts on the lens. Multifocal lens implants during a cataract surgery can restore vision at all distances.
Common age-related eye diseases include macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. Age-related macular degeneration has been the leading cause of blindness in American seniors. People in their 80s develop glaucoma at a 12 percentage. The National Eye Institute estimates that 40% of the 10.2 million of diagnosed diabetic patients have some degree of diabetic retinopathy.
Natural aging involves various subtle changes in vision and eye structures, including pupil size, tears production, peripheral and color vision, vitreous and so on.
The pupil becomes smaller and less responsive to changes in ambient lighting as people age. As a result, older individuals always need more ambient light for comfortable reading. They may get help from photochromic lenses or lenses with anti-reflective coatings. Aging also makes the eyes to generate fewer tears, especially in women after menopause. Artificial tears can be prescribed to ease symptoms such as burning and stinging caused resulted from dry eye.
Older people also suffer peripheral vision loss, which is quite harmful during driving. Older motorists need more attention when approaching intersections. Color vision and color sensitivity declines are also quite common in old people, which result from the aging of related retinal cells that are responsible for color perception. Unfortunately, there is no effective treatment for decreased color vision. Aging may bring vitreous detachment, resulting in spots and floaters as well as flashes in the visual field. These symptoms may signify a detached retina that is likely to cause blindness.
Treatments of age-related vision changes involve some other factors. eye exams from professional optometrists or ophthalmologists are important to detect vision problems. And old people should tell their doctors about family vision history, current taking medications and other conditions that may be associated with vision health. Eye health also requires a healthy diet and smoking quitting.
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