What is Presbyopia and what should I do?

Presbyopia is long-sightedness which is caused by the loss of elasticity of our eye lens and mostly occurs in the middle and older age. The eye condition which occurs due to both myopia and hypermetropia is called Presbyopia. 

Myopia is also commonly known as nearsightedness and hypermetropia is known as long-sightedness. Due to Presbyopia, we are unable to see the objects placed near our eyes especially reading material. Presbyopia is a common eye condition around the world including Singapore and happens mostly around the age of 40. Previously, Presbyopia used to be treated by bifocal spectacles, but now there are many treatments for presbyopia correction in Singapore.

In Presbyopia, the lens of our eye becomes harder and less elastic, making it harder for the eye to focus on the nearby objects and as a result, a person will hold the reading material slightly further than the normal distance from the eye, causing eye strain, headache and fatigue. According to a study by science direct in 2015, for the age of 0-90 years,1.8 billion people were affected by Presbyopia. As presbyopia happens to every other person, therefore, it is important to treat it soon in order to avoid deteriorating it further. There are mainly 3 ways to treat for presbyopia correction:

1. Contact lens

2. Spectacles.

3. Surgery.

Contact lens: At an early stage of presbyopia, patients often have an unpleasant experience especially for those who have not ever used glasses and suddenly unable to see the closer objects. Using bifocal glasses is not welcomed by many and hence comes the alternate option for bifocal contact lenses which will be prescribed by your eye specialist to help with presbyopia correction.

Spectacles: Those who prefer glasses have the option of Bifocal spectacles prescribed by their eye doctor, where top of the spectacles lens has a prescription of distance vision and bottom has the near vision. Spectacles with progressive lens and reading glasses is another alternative option prescribed by your eye specialist to help with presbyopia correction.

Surgery: Another method is presbyopia surgery for presbyopia correction, which is a painless Lasik surgery treatment which is a common option as most individuals would like not to go through the hassle of wearing glasses or lens.

Patients suffering from Presbyopia, are first assessed by the eye specialist and check for the eye conditions, whether if the eye is having any cataract, then they are given the choice of multi-focal or mono-focal implants, done within 15 minutes time under local anesthetic, which will then help to cure the eye conditions such as myopia, astigmatism, and presbyopia. There are a number of specialist in Singapore to treat presbyopia and you are able to choose the Singapore presbyopia clinic which best suits your needs. If you are comfortable with multi-focal and mono-focal lens implants, then you could contact Dr Natasha Lim, a well known experienced eye specialist in Singapore.

Sometimes, Presbyopia might happen at a younger age just before middle age without the presence of Singapore cataract . Then mostly the eye specialist would advise to go for the Lasik surgery whereby the shape of the cornea is changed using a laser. A latest FDA-approved procedure to cure presbyopia is known as mono-LASIK, where one eye is treated for near and the other for distance, in a simple pain-free 10-minute procedure, under local anesthesia.

Most of the common eye conditions such as short-sightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia are able to be cured by LASIK treatment. There is another option for patients above 45 years old, called implantable contact lens but it is not FDA-approved yet. There are a number of methods to treat presbyopia correction in Singapore, whether its multi-lens implant to treat presbyopia during cataract surgery, or mono-vision LASIK surgery to treat presbyopia correction, we need to make sure that we research thoroughly for the selected eye specialist, for their qualification, their clients testimonials and read the online reviews as well as word of mouth, to ensure that we choose the legitimate eye specialist who has sufficient experience, FDA certified and possess latest technology and equipment to perform the presbyopic correction treatment.