Presbyopia/PresbyLASIK Surgery

Presbyopia

"Presbys" is Greek and means "old man" and "opia" refers to the eye. Presbyopia, also called “short-arm vision”, usually occurs in the early forties and increases with age; it can make reading things up close difficult. The lenses of the eyes lose their ability to accommodate and the muscles inside the eye lose their flexibility. Some patients with presbyopia may be good candidates for specialized LASIK eye surgery, called monovision.

PresbyLASIK Surgery

In this type of laser eye surgery, different zones to correct vision at the close, far and intermediate zones are mapped out on the clear front surface of the eye (the cornea). This works in a similar manner to a multifocal contact lens. PresbyLASIK or multifocal LASIK is still in its investigational stage, and has not yet been approved by the FDA. Clinical trials in the United States have been exploring the effectiveness and safety of the procedure.

Monovision LASIK Surgery

In Monovision, also called Autovision, the LASIK surgeon corrects the patient’s dominant eye for distance vision and slightly under-corrects the non-dominant eye so that it can focus at objects that are closer. Normally, the brain easily adapts to this and makes the adjustment automatically and seamlessly. When the patient looks in the distance, the distance eye is at work. When the patient looks at something close or wants to read, the eye corrected for reading does the work. Since this approach is not well tolerated by all patients, many eye surgeons test this out by temporarily fitting their patients with two different contact lenses to see how they adapt.

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