Many experts believe that up to 30% of people who have diabetes have not yet been diagnosed. According to the NEI, approximately 10.2 million Americans over age 40 are known to have diabetes. If detected early enough, glaucoma can often be controlled with medical treatment or surgery and vision loss can be prevented.ĭiabetic retinopathy. The number of Americans with glaucoma is expected to increase by 50% (to 3.6 million) by the year 2020. Your risk of developing glaucoma increases with each decade after age 40 – from around 1% in your 40s to up to 12% in your 80s. Currently, there is no cure for AMD, but medical treatment may slow its progression or stabilize it. population is aging rapidly, and this number is expected to increase to almost three million by 2020. According to the National Eye Institute (NEI), macular degeneration affects more than 1.75 million people in the United States. Macular degeneration (also called age-related macular degeneration or AMD) is the leading cause of blindness among American seniors. These advanced intraocular lenses (IOLs) potentially can restore all ranges of vision, thus reducing your need for reading glasses as well as distance glasses after cataract surgery. Also, multifocal lens implants are now available. It’s often better to have cataracts removed before they advance too far. If you are noticing vision changes due to cataracts, don’t hesitate to discuss symptoms with your eye doctor. Thankfully, modern cataract surgery is extremely safe and so effective that 100% of vision lost to cataract formation usually is restored. It’s estimated that by 2020 more than 30 million Americans will have cataracts. As you enter your 70s, the percentage is even higher. According to Mayo Clinic, about half of all 65-year-old Americans have some degree of cataract formation in their eyes. Even though cataracts are considered an age-related eye disease, they are so common among seniors that they can also be classified as a normal aging change. Some corrective surgery options for presbyopia also are available, such as monovision LASIK and conductive keratoplasty (CK).Ĭataracts. But eventually, you’ll need reading glasses, multifocal contact lenses or multifocal eyeglasses. This normal loss of focusing ability is called presbyopia, and is due to hardening of the lens inside your eye.įor a time, you can compensate for this decline in focusing ability by just holding reading material farther away from your eyes. After you pass the milestone age of 40, you’ll notice it’s more difficult to focus on objects up close. When do age-related vision changes occur? These conditions include glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. Some of us, however, will experience more serious age-related eye diseases that have greater potential for affecting our quality of life as we grow older. While cataracts can be considered an age-related disease, they are extremely common among seniors and can be readily corrected with cataract surgery. Some age-related eye changes, such as presbyopia, are perfectly normal and don’t signify any sort of disease process. Just as our physical strength decreases with age, our eyes also exhibit an age-related decline in performance – particularly as we reach our 60s and beyond.
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