Presbyopia. Can it be corrected?

Presbyopia is a frequently recurring matter in your questions. Can it be corrected? Is it possible to function and read without glasses?

For starters: what is presbyopia?

It is not a disease, flaw or pathology. It is natural, age-induced degradation of the eye, usually occurring in early forties.
Young person’s lens is soft and elastic - changing its shape (accommodating) allows seeing objects at different distances. Elastic lens can change its shape thanks to the ciliary muscle. Long range focus is possible by its relaxation while focusing on a close object occurs due to contraction of that muscle. As years pass the lens becomes less flexible and the ciliary muscle becomes weaker - this results in decreased ability to focus sight on proximal objects.

Laser vision correction can cure such disorders as hyperopia, myopia and astigmatism. One of the requirements for achieving positive results is stability of the disorder for at least 12 months.

Presbyopia is often mistakenly taken for hyperopia. Hyperopia develops when the eyeball is too short. One way of correcting such dysfunction is performing keratoplastic surgery, so that the image is correctly focused on the retina. As mentioned above, presbyopia is caused by the loss of the elasticity of the intraocular lens and weakening of the eye muscles.

Is there a possibility to improve quality of vision in presbyopia?

Yes, it is possible to correct the effect of presbyopia by laser surgery.
People suffering from presbyopia can undergo a surgery called monovision; the dominant eye will be responsible for long range vision while the other – for short range vision. Thanks to that solution one can function normally without glasses, and necessity to use glasses while reading will be greatly postponed.

Laser can temporarily correct the effect of presbyopia, not the presbyopia itself (it’s a matter of the intraocular lens), so the effect will not be permanent, unlike correcting sight defects (myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism). The side effect of monovision surgery is decrease in quality of long-range vision so it is not a good solution for those who may need to see distant objects.

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