The requirement for reading glasses over 45 years of age is caused by Presbyopia- it’s like struggling against the tide, ultimately most people will need reading glasses. Most people find this onset of blurred near vision a significant bother and the necessity of having reading glasses everywhere you go even more so. It’s a symptom of age and the desire to avoid it is enormous.
In the past the method to be free of reading glasses has long been less than ideal. Laser eye surgery by itself can correct only for one distance range and thus for patients over 45 years of age the option has been to either correct both eyes for distance vision and use reading glasses, or a procedure known as monovision, in which one eye is corrected for distance vision and the other eye for near vision.
The issue with the monovision procedure is the fact that having one eye for distance vision and one for near vision will not support fine depth perception, or ‘stereopsis’. Our visual process has developed especially to grant us fine depth perception and the losing this is a large sacrifice.
Monovision also lets us read by making one eye shortsighted and this refraction means a near point of focus. Unfortunately, the issue with this is the requirement for reading glasses gets more necessary as you get older, and typically within a decade a monovision correction will not be good enough to allow good reading and will necessitate future enhancement. This is the cause of the widely thought misbelief that laser eye surgery lasts only ten years. In actuality, distance correction should really last for the rest of your life; it’s primarily ability to read that tends to shift as time passes.
To overcome a lot of the shortfalls of typical endeavours to achieve freedom of reading eyeglasses such as monovision, there is an exciting new procedure called the Kamra Inlay. It’s tiny, at only 3.8mm diameter, black donut with a central 1.6 mm aperture that’s merely 5 microns thick. That’s actually finer than a single cell on the surface of the cornea. The Kamray inlay is employed together with a Blade-free or femtosecond laser eye surgery operation and is nestled in the bed of the flap that is created at the conclusion of the case in solely the non-dominant eye.
The basic principle is that a shortened aperture to look through boosts the focal range, allowing a full spectrum of vision from distance, intermediate, and all the way down to the smallest printed line for near. It’s a comparable idea to that observed in photography where a narrowed aperture increases the detail of focus in a image so things seen simultaneously in the distance and in the near are seen with sharp relief.
The elegance of the treatment is multiple:
- A Kamra patient can sustain the two eyes seeing well for distance and thus sustain the vital appreciation of depth perception that’s unfortunately lost with monovision operations.
- Contrary to the isolated near ‘sweet spot’ experienced in monovision procedures, someone with the Kamra inlay has an whole spectrum of vision from distance all the way up to near with everything in the middle sharply focused too.
- The improved focal depth that is attained is acceptable to last for your whole lifespan irrespective of the power of reading glasses that would have been needed at that age and therefore you may well maintain independence from spectacles for life without needing to have anything else done.
- It provides great reassurance to patients having the operation that it is entirely reversible.
- Even individuals with a conventional monofocal lens after a cataract extraction procedure would have the opportunity to read with a Kamra inlay in without all the issues encountered with a multi-focal intraocular lens such as seeing halos around bright lights.
- Individuals who have already had laser vision correction procedures in their past can still have the Kamra inlay implanted as a supplementary technique when they start to require spectacles.
- Patients who already have excellent long range vision and only require reading glasses are the most suitable candidates for the Kamra inlay, as contrary to monovision in the past, they now do not need to give up their distance vision quality to realize their goal of eradicating the reading glasses.
The huge demand from the forty somethings and beyond to achieve escape from reading glasses will make it possible for the thrilling step forward the Kamra inlay represents to make a massive impact in the area of vision correction; the Kamra – the tiny revolution!
Dr. James Genge is a trusted and accomplished ophthalmologist from Sydney Australia. Want to learn more about the Kamra inlay? Visit his website at Laser Eye Surgery Sydney.