Cataracts are areas of clouding or opacity in the lens of the eye. If they are large enough or are located strategically in the visual path, they may reduce visual acuity. Although some cataracts that form are not part of the aging process and may occur at any age, there are cataracts that come with growing old. The first of the age-related changes may begin as early as age 40. The speed with which cataracts develop and their extent remain highly variable from person to person. The development of cataracts often causes a problem with glare.
Between the extremes of vision that are normal (or can be corrected to near normal with eyeglasses) and blindness, there is a problem called low vision. Every effort should be made to ensure that all reversible aspects of visual change are treated in patients who suffer from low vision. The vision that remains forms the baseline from which the patient and the caregiver must work.
Drooping of one or both of the eyelids is called ptosis or blepharoptosis. It may involve one or both eyes. There are many causes of a drooping eyelid, some of which are particularly common in the elderly. Often the drooping comes on very gradually and the patient is not aware of the change.
The condition in which the fluids within the eye develop a higher than normal pressure is called glaucoma. If glaucoma is not treated, the increased pressure is transmitted to the optic nerves and can produce irreversible loss of vision, even complete blindness.
Everyone experiences a change in the eyes with aging. The result of this change is the loss of the ability of the lens of the eye to adapt for near vision. This loss of accommodation is called presbyopia.
Presbyopic change begins in people in their early forties and usually stabilizes around age 65. You can correct near vision by using magnifying lenses, that is, common reading glasses. Presbyopic change is gradual and slowly progressive over a period as long as several decades, and a change in your reading lenses to a greater strength is needed every few years until the presbyopia stabilizes.
The sensation of odor or sense of smell is susceptible to change with aging. Physicians call an absence of the sense of smell anosmia. This is less common as a result of aging than impairment of the sense of smell, which physicians call hyposmia. Sometimes the ability to smell becomes distorted. This physicians call dysosmia. Any of these changes affect the ability of a person to appreciate odors in the environment. When this happens, it changes the ability to appreciate food and other elements of the environment.
Cataracts are areas of clouding or opacity in the lens of the eye. If they are large enough or are located strategically in the visual path, they may reduce visual acuity. Although some cataracts that form are not part of the aging process and may occur at any age, there are cataracts that come with growing old. The first of the age-related changes may begin as early as age 40. The speed with which cataracts develop and their extent remain highly variable from person to person. The development of cataracts often causes a problem with glare.
Between the extremes of vision that are normal (or can be corrected to near normal with eyeglasses) and blindness, there is a problem called low vision. Every effort should be made to ensure that all reversible aspects of visual change are treated in patients who suffer from low vision. The vision that remains forms the baseline from which the patient and the caregiver must work.
Drooping of one or both of the eyelids is called ptosis or blepharoptosis. It may involve one or both eyes. There are many causes of a drooping eyelid, some of which are particularly common in the elderly. Often the drooping comes on very gradually and the patient is not aware of the change.
The condition in which the fluids within the eye develop a higher than normal pressure is called glaucoma. If glaucoma is not treated, the increased pressure is transmitted to the optic nerves and can produce irreversible loss of vision, even complete blindness.
