Multifocal contact lenses offer freedom from reading glasses.

Contact lens wearers who reach “bifocal age” have several options to deal with the normal age-related loss of near vision caused by presbyopia. These include: 1) wearing reading glasses over their contacts; 2) wearing monovision contacts; and 3) wearing multifocal contact lenses.

According to a recent report published in the journal Contact Lens Spectrum, more aging contact lens wearers than ever are choosing option 3: being fitted with multifocal contacts. Read more…

Real-world tasks like reading a menu may be the best way to evaluate monovision and multifocal contacts.

Though visual acuity testing with an eye chart is the hallmark of vision testing during routine eye exams, it may not be the best way to evaluate the performance of bifocal contact lenses, according to an international expert.

Instead, Eric Papas, PhD, says many researchers have turned to occupation-based tasks and other “real-world” activities to evaluate the performance of monovision and multifocal contacts for the correction of presbyopia. Read more…

Multifocal contact lenses may reduce vision for night driving, at least among new lens wearers.

Older adults who wear multifocal contact lenses or monovision contacts to correct presbyopia may have greater difficulty driving at night than when wearing eyeglasses, according to a new study.

In an article published in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, researchers in Australia investigated the effect of a variety of methods of presbyopic vision correction on the night driving performance of 11 subjects between the ages of 45 to 64 years. Read more…

The University of Alabama at Birmingham is taking part in a premarket research study of new contact lenses. The research team is evaluating contacts designed for people with presbyopia — an inescapable, age-related condition that causes a loss of near vision after age 40.

In addition to correcting presbyopia, the lenses are made of a “super breathable contact lens material and are much healthier for the eye,” says Dr. Adam Gordon, associate professor and director of the Cornea Contact Lens Clinic at the University.

Gordon says the new multifocal contact lenses will “revolutionize the way people see and encourage the evolution of contacts away from monovision lenses.”

He says that while patients who wish to wear multifocal contacts should understand the limitations of these lenses, he believes the new lenses being studied will be an “improvement in both vision and comfort” for contact lens wearers with presbyopia.