The ageing eye (Presbyopia)

There are two main parts of your eye which are responsible for focussing light onto your retina so you can see clearly.

These are your cornea, which is the transparent dome-shaped part at front of your eye which covers your iris, and the lens inside your eye. The lens inside your eye changes shape to allow you to see things that are close.

As you get older, the flexibility of the lens inside your eye reduces. This means that you are less able to focus on things that are close to you, so you may need to have reading glasses.

How will presbyopia affect my vision?

If you are perfect-sighted, presbyopia will only affect your ability to see close up (reading) and intermediate vision (computer). It doesn’t affect your distance vision so you will still be able to drive without glasses.

If you’re long-sighted, as you get older and the lens stiffens, both your distance vision without glasses and your near vision will become worse. You will then need to wear separate glasses for distance and near vision or wear multifocal lenses which will enable you to incorporate all your needs into one pair of glasses.

If you’re short-sighted, you’ll find that you can read more easily by taking your glasses off. This is because your natural focus is already close up so you can see things clearly at this distance without your glasses. However, you may prefer to also wear multifocal lenses to stop having to take your glasses off whenever you want to read.

Presbyopia isn’t caused by muscle weakness but by the lens stiffening as we age. There are no exercises that can help this.

Presbyopia will get worse as you age until you reach your late fifties when you will have no natural focussing ability left. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to stop it.