When it comes to maintaining your health, preserving good vision is as important as diet and exercise. Keeping healthy and fit can make it possible for you to take advantage of new opportunities and reopen doors that seem closed
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How much do you know about how the eye sees...or sometimes doesn’t see
Normal Eye
Within the normal eye the surface is convex, and light rays that hit it bend toward its center. In an eye that has a normally curved cornea and the correct shape, an image focuses exactly on the retina.
Myopia(Nearsightedness)
When the eyeball is too long, light rays focus in front of, rather than on, the retina. Under these circumstances, near objects are perceived clearly but distant objects are not
Hyperopia (farsightedness)
When the eyeball is too short, light rays entering the eye focus behind the retina. Distant objects are seen clearly but near objects are not.
Astigmatism
Vision becomes distorted when the surface of the cornea lens has an uneven curvature; sometimes, it is the eye’s lens that is irregularly shaped. This type of irregularity causes light to focus on more than one spot in the back of the eye, causing blurred vision.
Cataracts
Cataracts are a clouding of the natural lens of the eye that occurs over time. This clouding eventually distorts or blocks light coming into the eye. In the early phase of cataract development, these changes can be managed with a simple adjustment in eyeglass prescription. Over the years, however, cataracts may progress to the point that they should be removed.
Glaucoma
Glaucoma refers to a group of eye conditions typified by an increased fluid pressure inside the eye. The increased pressure causes compression of the optic nerve. This nerve carries visual information from the eye to the brain, and can eventually become damaged with glaucoma. Elevated eye pressure is the greatest risk factor for optic nerve damage in glaucoma. If unrecognized and untreated, glaucoma can cause partial vision loss, with blindness as a possible eventual outcome,
Presbyopia (loss of reading vision)
The lens of a youthful eye is flexible and can respond to the eye’s muscles and change shape (“accommodate”), becoming thicker to see near objects clearly. Over time, the eye’s lens gradually loses its elasticity and its ability to change shape to see close objects. Bifocals or reading glasses are the traditional prescription for remedying this presbyopic loss of accommodation, but recent technology makes it possible to exchange the inflexible lens for one designed to compensate for changes in the eye and improve functional vision at all distances
Both cataracts and presbyopia share the same basic cause: TIME.
If you live long enough, you will almost certainly develop presbyopia (and perhaps cataracts as well) as a result of the normal aging process. As the eye matures, the lens gradually loses its elasticity and its ability to ‘accommodate’ (change shape) to see close objects; this change generally takes place between ages 40 and 45. Bifocals and reading glasses are the traditional prescriptions for remedying this presbyopic loss of accommodation. Eventually, a cataract may cause the lens to become less transparent. Most often, this clouding takes place slowly as proteins within the lens cluster together. When cataracts progress to the point that they affect vision, it is time to trade in the clouded lens for one that is crystal clear.
Traditionally, an eye surgeon removes the clouded lens and replaces it with a clear monofocal lens that resolves the cataract issue but does not address presbyopia, so the patient may still need glasses. Now, Custom Cataract Surgery and advanced technology makes it possible for Dr. Kasten to replace the clouded, inflexible lens with a clear multifocal lens designed to restore more youthful vision and compensate for presbyopia. If an advanced multifocal replacement lens is part of your Custom Cataract Surgery treatment plan, you stand a better chance of achieving spectacle-free seamless vision for seeing at:NEAR distances for reading prescription labels INTERMEDIATE distances for recognizing faces FAR distances, for driving
One of the implantable advanced replacement lens technologies available at South Palm Eye Associates may make it possible for you to recapture a full range of quality vision…and reduce your dependence on reading glasses and bifocals.
