Presbyopia

When the eyes lose their ability to zoom to close up objects

This happens to everybody, usually around 43 years old

We can treat this with eyeglasses, bifocal contact lenses and sometimes surgeries

The difficulty with this condition is that the eyeglass (or contact lens) Rx necessary to clear up the vision up close will cause the distance vision to blur (while the lenses are on)

This requires a person to put the glasses on just to see up close and take them off in order to see far away

For some patients, the constant "juggling" of eyeglasses will cause much frustration and they might prefer to use a bifocal

The bifocal (or multifocal) will have a different Rx on the lens when you look through the top compared to the bottom of the lens

You can get a bifocal (or trifocal) with a visible line (or lines) moving across the lens

You can also get a bifocal (more correctly called a multifocal in this case) which has no line, but a gradual change in the Rx as you look further down along the height of the lens

The no-line option is called a progressive lens

For patients who prefer contact lenses, there are three options

Wear contact lenses to see clear far away and use reading glasses for when you need to read up close, this is the most clear vision option

Wear contact lenses with one eye to see far away and the other eye to see up close, this is called monovision

Wear bifocal (or multifocal) contact lenses where each eye can see clear both far and near, with both eyes working together, this will likely be more comfortable for patients who do a lot of reading during the day

ICD10 Code

H52.4