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Because cataracts develop gradually, it may take a long time for sufferers to realize they have a problem. The typical first symptoms include a slight haze or dullness in the vision and a gradual diminished sense of colors. Night vision may deteriorate. Glares and halos may appear around lights at night, or even during daylight.
Cataracts can be diagnosed during their early stages using many different tests, but eventually they become visible to anyone looking at the sufferer's eyes as grey or cloudy regions over the iris and pupil. By this point, most sufferers have begun to experience serious vision loss.
Cataract Treatment
Currently, the only treatment option available for cataracts is a lens exchange, in which the natural lens is removed and replaced with an artificial lens, often known as an intraocular lens or IOL. The treatment is permanent, since the artificial lens cannot become clouded like a natural lens.
In the past, the only option available for those receiving artificial lenses were monofocal--they could only allow clear vision at one distance. As a result, most people needed to wear reading glasses or even bifocals or trifocals following cataract vision.
Too Old to Rock & Roll, too Young for Glasses
In this day and age, many people consider glasses to be a burden on their Hollywood-inspired lifestyle. They may be especially resentful of having to wear bifocals or trifocals, which make them feel "old." In our youth-obsessed culture, being, feeling, or especially seeming old is bad, even if the person in question is aged 70 or more. Older Americans are encouraged to be active essentially until they die, and glasses can put an unfortunate cramp in their style.
The apparent burden of glasses has also been increased by advertising related to refractive procedures like LASIK, which stress the freedom of life without glasses. In addition to the general cultural stigma associated with glasses, people who received LASIK or other refractive surgeries to live without glasses may be annoyed at the prospect of having to wear glasses again.
New Options
Fortunately for these people, an option now exists for them to maintain their high-octane lifestyle despite cataracts and CAFE standards. Advanced IOLs have different refractive properties that allow many people to see clearly at multiple distances. One example is the ReSTOR lens, developed by Acrysof. The ReSTOR lens is what is known as a toric IOL, with multiple refractive zones that focus light from different distances on the retina, allowing recipients to have clear vision at multiple distances, often as good or better than their previous vision. According to clinical trials, the most recent version of the ReSTOR lens, the +3.0 D, gave many of its users all but total freedom from glasses, with 80 percent saying they never used their glasses.
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