Today we're gonna have a look at the process that leads to you struggling to
focus close up and this... Yes we're talking about presbyopia. Hi I'm Martin Oguzie
and this is Martin's Eye Tips, thank you for joining me. On this channel we're all
about bringing you eye care tips, how to videos and product reviews all designed
to help you see better, see more comfortably and be less anxious about
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Today's Peace Of Mind point is just to emphasise to you that presbyopia is not
a disease it's not something that's going to continue to get worse and worse
and worse forever it's quite predictable we know when it starts it deteriorates
quite fast in the beginning slows down then comes to a point where it
stabilizes so it means you're never gonna get to a point where you're gonna
need a really thick glasses just because of the change that's happening with your
reading. The human eye is essentially a two lens system with the cornea being at
the front and the crystalline lens further in within the eye. The cornea
tells us whether you are farsighted or nearsighted and helps to focus your
general distance vision whereas the crystalline lens you can think of as the
lens that does all your auto-focusing for objects closer to, so that's reading
computer use and everything in between. The cystalline lens to me is
particularly fascinating because it's a structure that has to be flexible and at
the same time it has to be really transparent in order to let light
through. Now the crystalline lens is arranged with an outermost shell that we
call the capsule which is firm but at the same time allows it to be flexible
then within it it has cells and these cells have to be arranged
in a way that allows it to be totally transparent now the lens is suspended by
special fibers that we call zonular fibers these fibers then act like
cables that attach to the lens but also attach to the muscles that surround the
lens as well so in quite a manual way every time the muscles contract the lens
changes shape in actual fact the lens is constantly under tension when your focus
is relaxed but when your focus is active and the
muscles contract then that releases the tension on the lens and the lens
expands and gets a bit thicker and that way it's able to focus. Now the problem
of presbyopia comes about because the lens has cells and these cells are
constantly multiplying and when they multiply the old cells get pushed
towards the center and the new cells are moved to the outside so by the time
you'll get to about 40 when we started to notice some of the early signs of
presbyopia then it indicates that this process now has come to a point where
it's getting so packed out within the lens the lens can no longer compress as
much as it needs to to see very close objects and as a result we tend to kind
of stretch our arms out a bit to extend our reach and also to minimize the
impact on our manual focusing and can potentially leave people struggling
to see and struggling with close-up problems for a big proportion of their
life and this process happens without exception to everybody. You might know
somebody who doesn't wear glasses and they're like in their 70s but there may
be other reasons for that so for example if you're someone who's short-sighted (myopic)
then your shortsightedness provides you a fixed focus position close up
depending on how much shortsightedness that you have if you're very
short-sighted your fixed focus position is going to be very close to your eye
and if you are weakly short-sighted then your fixed focused position is going to
be a lot further away so short-sighted or myopic or nearsighted individuals
they will often have the benefit of their shortsightedness and means that
they may never need to use glasses for reading now the other type of person is
somebody who has very small pupils small pupils can isolate the amount of light
go into your eyes and the central rays of light that are isolated don't tend to
need focusing and as a result people can see a lot better with their very small
pupils it's the same reason why you see better in very bright lights in very
bright lights you people's get very small by creating a pinhole effect and
you can see a lot better as well and also are very small pupils you get a
better depth of focus as well which is beneficial
you're looking at things close up so one of the things about presbyopia is
that it's fairly predictable, so most of us tend to notice the reading problems
from by the age of 40 onwards it then deteriorates quite fast, slows down then
comes to the point of stabilization round about the age of 60 so around
about the age of 60s the point where we tend to find that the crystalline lens
has zero flexibility left in it and this also ties in with a point where our
reading prescription then stay stable so your reading ad will may stabilize round
about the 2.50 to point 2.75, you may possibly need to go up to about 3.00 a
little bit later on so but that tends to be about the endpoint. For more of an
explanation about your reading add on your glasses prescription in general
then please check out the video in the top right corner and that will give you
some more information on that. So now for my tip of the day! If you're somebody who's
been given glasses recently for reading and you're concerned about you know
wearing the glasses regularly because either you think or you've heard that
wearing them regularly is going to make your eyes get worse or you're gonna get
dependent on them but hopefully through the process that are described you can
see that whatever you do the process is only gonna go one way and there's
nothing you can do about it you might as well just make use of your glasses to
make your eyes comfortable for the tasks that you need to do each day so by all
means if there are things that you're doing and you're at a stage where you
can kind of take it or leave it with your glasses then by all means manage
without them but if you do need them when you're struggling to see you really
not helping your eyes at all by not wearing them so I'd encourage you to use
them as much as you need to now yes some people do believe that by wearing
glasses regularly you're gonna kind of get dependent on them etc now it's quite
natural that as your vision gets worse reading and it becomes very hard to see
things close up you are gonna find a lot more benefit in using your glasses than
not and that's just a process of your brain understanding that you know it's
seen clearer with the glasses than without and that it knows what it's
missing so it becomes harder to make do without the glasses and so there's no
benefit in managing without them when you do need them. My question for you
today is; Do you experience presbyopia and how do you feel about having to wear
reading glasses on a regular basis leave a comment for me in the comment section
below. If you found this video helpful then please consider liking it
subscribing to the channel and also hitting the notification bell as well, that
way you get reminded every time I release a new video. Take care and I look
forward to seeing you in the next video