What are the Alternatives?

Reading Glasses
Reading glasses are the safest and most common aid for presbyopia. Appearance, finding, keeping and cleaning them, as well as limited field of view, are often cited as being quality of life annoyances.

Contact Lenses
Both soft and rigid gas permeable contact lenses can provide improved near vision. There are two approaches to achieve improved near vision in patients with good distance vision. Both multifocal and monovision lens designs are available, each with advantages and disadvantages in quality for distance, intermediate and near tasks. Multifocal lenses have a region that focus at near and a region that focuses at distance. Monovision is defined as targeting one eye for good reading vision and one eye for good distance vision. Cleaning, replacements, costs, eye infections, and susceptibility to environmental irritants are common disadvantages to contact lens technologies. Your eye care professional can discuss how contact lenses are suitability to your lifestyle needs and if there are any potential issues with adaptation and quality of vision issues.

Conductive Keratoplasty "CK"
This non-laser refractive surgery uses a radio-frequency probe to create a ring of spots outside of the pupil area of the cornea. The probe shrinks the cornea's collagen, changing the shape of the eye to see better at near. Since only one eye is treated, acceptance of monovision is important with CK. The effects of CK decrease with time, as it is a temporary surgical treatment.

Laser Refractive Surgery
LASIK surgery is not approved to treat near vision in patients with good distance vision.

Intraocular Lenses
Intraocular lenses (IOLs) are not approved for patients without cataracts. Multifocal and accommodating IOLs are options for improving near vision only in patients undergoing cataract surgery.