Eye care tips for you and your family

Older adults
(Ages 40 and over)
At age 40 and beyond eyes start to change, sometimes dramatically, so people are encouraged to have a comprehensive eye exam every year or two. "This is when eye diseases (for instance, glaucoma) become more prevalent again and often without symptoms or warning signs," says Ulakovic.

Potential problems
• Hyperopia: by about age 40, 10 per cent of people are farsighted and experience difficulties seeing and reading fine print. Inexpensive corrective magnifying glasses, found at pharmacies and other stores, may help some; others may require prescription lenses. Laser surgery may be an option.

• Presbyopia: the normal loss in flexibility of the eye's lens as it ages. Presbyopia affects 100 per cent of the population by about age 50. Reading and seeing at close range becomes difficult. Inexpensive corrective magnifying glasses may help some people, but most people need corrective lenses of increasing strength, with bifocal or trifocal lenses.

• Floaters: small clumps of material that float in the clear, gel-like substance (vitreous humour) that fills the inside of the eye. Floaters appear as shadowy spots, lines or circles that drift in front of the eye. Present in half the population by age 50, floaters are usually caused by the normal eye-aging process. There is no proven, safe treatment.

• Open-angle glaucoma: the most common type of glaucoma. There are no physical symptoms. The disease, caused by increased pressure in the eye, damages the optic nerve, affecting the peripheral vision first. If not treated, the disease results in further vision loss and blindness. About one in 100 adults over age 40 are affected. Other risk factors include age; family history; myopia; being of African or Hispanic descent; having diabetes; having had a heart attack or stroke; and increased intraocular pressure (IOP), caused by a blockage that stops the normal flow of fluid from the eye.

This disease can be diagnosed before vision loss occurs, but once IOP is detected, some irreversible damage has already occurred.

The usual treatment for glaucoma is eye drops, or other forms of medication, which lower the IOP and prevent further damage. Treatment may also progress to include laser therapy, which can halt the progess of the disease.

• Closed-angle glaucoma: the less common, more acute type of glaucoma, this is caused by the blockage of fluid inside the eye, leading to a rapid and painful rise in IOP. Symptoms such as severe eye pain, swelling, redness, and decreased and cloudy vision signal a medical emergency. Blindness can occur in just a few days. Having this kind of glaucoma in one eye puts the other eye at risk, but preventive treatment is available. Doctors can lower IOP intravenously; sometimes surgery is required, which can also prevent a future attack. An eye-health professional can tell you if you have 
the type of eye structure that may lead to this problem.

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