Book Description

Abstract: There are more presbyopic patients than ever. The US Census reports that from 2000 to 2006-2008 there were 14,595,153 more people between the ages of forty-five and sixty-four. Even though glasses provide a great option for these types of patients to assist them in seeing at distance, intermediate, and near, a lot of patients want that ability to see at those distances in the form of a contact lens. For reasons of cosmesis and greater freedom from eyewear in a more active lifestyle, some patients prefer contact lenses and presbyopic patients are no different. Studies have shown that indeed presbyopic patients can be successful in a presbyopic contact lens modality. Gauthier1992 showed that of the 1133 patients surveyed, 28% were found to be interested in trying monovision contact lenses (Gauthier, Holden, Grant and Chong, 1992). Of the 72 patients that were fit in monovision, Gauthier found at one month that 64% of the patients were still wearing lenses and 54% of the patients would continue to wear the monovision modality. In 2006 Richdale reported that 84% of presbyopic patients (38/45) were able to complete a near vision correction contact lens study (Richdale, Mitchell and Zadnik, 2006). When patients in this study had to choose between a monovision contact lens modality and a multifocal modality, 76% of the 38 patients reported that they preferred the multifocal modality over the older technology of a monovision correction (Richdale et al., 2006). Gauthier asked how many were interested and successful in monovision, but no study has put these two results, interest and success, together for the newer technology of the multifocal design. Due to the potential increasing demand for presbyopic contact lens correction, multifocal contact lens fitting might be facilitated by information on the relative advantages of different multifocal brands. We evaluated the interest and success level among presbyopes of multifocal contact lenses. We found of 300 presbyopes between the ages of 43-65 years of age surveyed that 42.9% were interested in multifocal contact lens wear. Of the 35 patients that began the study 27 (77.1%) wore lenses for the three month period and 25 of the 27 patients (92.6%) wanted a prescription for their particular lens so they could have the option of wearing lenses in the future during some part of their week.