Like other parts of your body, your eyes change as the years go by. Since your eyes are complex structures performing a crucial task, they can be affected by aging in many ways.
Fortunately, treatments are available for many of these issues, and, with regular eye care, most conditions can be detected in the early stages, before your vision suffers severely. Make regular eye care a priority and schedule an eye exam with IC Laser Eye Care. The ophthalmologists at our offices in Philadelphia and Bensalem, Pennsylvania, and Hamilton, New Jersey, can ensure clear vision for years to come.
Plenty of minor issues affect your eyes, even at young ages. Dry eye is increasingly a problem due to the prevalence of smartphones, tablets, and other digital screens. However, some eye problems generally affect older adults. Here are five of the most common.
A common age-related vision change, presbyopia reveals itself when your arms become too short to hold reading material at a place of focus. Near vision fails as eye muscles weaken and elements of your eyes don’t change shape to focus as well as they once did. Changes may begin in your 40s, progressing as you get older. Fortunately, presbyopia is easily corrected with reading glasses or contacts.
While people rarely go completely blind with macular degeneration, their central vision can be affected enough that they may be unable to read or drive. Daily functions may become more difficult. The macula is a central area on your retina, and as it deteriorates your vision becomes blurred or wavy, and in severe cases it can completely disappear. Your peripheral vision, though, usually remains intact. While macular degeneration can’t be cured, its progress can be slowed.
The lens of your eyes can, over time, become cloudy when proteins inside it start to clump together. As this cloudiness progresses, your vision deteriorates. Glare becomes an issue, and you may develop halos around lights, making night vision more difficult. Colors can become muted; overall, vision becomes cloudy or fuzzy. Surgery for cataracts is one of the most commonly performed operations. Your surgeon exchanges the cloudy lens for an artificial replacement.
The pressure inside your eye is typically regulated with a regular release of fluid. When this natural mechanism fails, pressure begins to build, and over time it can cause damage to the optic nerve and in severe cases result in blindness. Glaucoma can be treated with medications or surgery, so early detection is important to limit the damage to your vision.
The blood vessels in the eyes can be damaged when you have diabetes. High blood glucose wears on the walls of blood vessels, and they start to leak. New vessels form in places that may be harmful to the retina, causing it to detach. While this is another incurable condition, treatment can limit the damage of the disease.
Eye care is important as you get older. Schedule a consultation with the closest IC Laser Eye Care location to ensure that you’re on top of these vision-related eye issues. Prompt care makes a difference, so book an exam today.
