Understanding presbyopia

Presbyopia is the most widespread and most natural visual condition.

It can be compared to the graying of hair, from which no one is exempt — but there are solutions for that too!

Presbyopia is a reduction in the eye's ability to accommodate.

Accommodation is the means by which the eye can adjust automatically to see at a distance or up close, depending on needs.

This can be compared to the autofocus system of a camera.

Accommodation works thanks to the crystalline lens. The crystalline lens is a lens located inside the eye.

The power of the crystalline lens can vary. When observing a distant object, the lens is at rest; when the object moves closer, the lens curves and increases its power, allowing near vision. 

With age, this accommodative capacity decreases. This is due to the simultaneous enlargement and hardening of the lens nucleus, the weakening of the muscle that enables accommodation, and a reduction in the elasticity of the lens capsule.

Around the age of 45, near vision begins to decline, and this difficulty worsens until the age of 60. In farsighted individuals, presbyopia becomes troublesome earlier. 

In nearsighted individuals, this happens later, as they can remove their glasses used for distance vision. 

Presbyopia therefore requires the use of a near vision correction in addition to any distance correction. There are numerous correction options: single-vision, bifocal, or progressive lenses, or multifocal contact lenses.