(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Having cataracts is often compared to looking through a foggy windshield of a car or through the dirty lens of a camera.
Cataracts are changes in clarity of the natural lens inside the eye that gradually degrade visual quality.
The lens plays a crucial role in focusing unimpeded light on the retina at the back of the eye explains Dr Rajeev Kumar Specialist Ophthalmologist Zulekha Hospital Sharjah.
Significant cataracts block and distort light passing through the lens causing visual symptoms and complaints. Cataract development is usually a very gradual process of normal aging but can occasionally occur rapidly.
Having cataracts is often compared to looking through a foggy windshield of a car or through the dirty lens of a camera. Cataracts may cause a variety of complaints and visual changes including blurred vision difficulty with glare (often with bright sun or automobile headlights while driving at night) dulled colour vision increased nearsightedness accompanied by frequent changes in eyeglass prescription and occasionally double vision in one eye.
Cataracts are usually gradual and usually not painful or associated with any eye redness or other symptoms unless they become extremely advanced. For an early cataract changes vision may be improved by simply changing your eyeglass prescription using a magnifying lens or increasing lighting when you do visually demanding tasks. Eventually cataracts get to a point where the only effective intervention is surgery. This decision is made based mainly on the degree of visual limitation the patient is experiencing.
The standard cataract surgical procedure is typically performed in a hospital. The most common form of cataract surgery today is a process called phacoemulsification. With the use of an operating microscope your surgeon will make a very small incision in the surface of the eye in or near the cornea. A thin ultrasound probe is inserted into the eye that uses ultrasonic vibrations to dissolve (phacoemulsify) the clouded lens. These tiny fragmented pieces are then suctioned out through the same ultrasound probe.
Once the cataract is removed an artificial lens is placed into the same thin capsular bag that the cataract occupied. This intraocular lens is essential to help your eye focus after surgery. In the phacoemulsification method cataract surgery can usually be performed in less than 30 minutes and usually requires only minimal sedation and numbing drops no stitches to close the wound and no eye patch after surgery.
There are a variety of intraocular lens styles available for implantation including monofocal toric and multifocal intraocular lenses.
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