Laser eye surgery treatment: Can laser eye surgery correct the need for reading glasses (presbyopia)?

Can laser eye surgery correct the need for reading glasses? Yes, it can.

This is a widely misunderstood issue. There is an urban myth about laser eye surgery, and it is perpetrated by a lot of eye surgeons: “laser eye surgery is only good for young people. It can only get people out of their spectacles for distance vision and it can do nothing about the reading.”

That is not the case.

The Answer: Blended Vision Laser Eye Surgery

There have been a lot of developments in the last five to ten years to address this issue. Different laser platforms have taken different approaches.

The laser platform that, in my opinion, has really come out on top with an effective, safe treatment using laser eye surgery to correct the need for reading glasses is the Zeiss MEL90 platform. It uses the Presbyond blended division treatment profile.

It builds on something that occurs naturally. We’re lucky enough to enjoy visual accommodation in our twenties and thirties, which is the magical ability to change focus from distance to near in just under a second. Part of that is achieved through an increase in an optical imperfection called a spherical aberration. That’s one of the things that take place when we accommodate as we shift focus from distance to nearness. The Presbyond laser blended vision software is used to create a controlled amount of spherical aberration to increase the depth of focus on each eye.

And then, for the vast majority of patients, we can ask each eye to do a slightly different job.

How does blended laser vision work in practice?

In my case, for example, my right eye is my dominant eye. So, my right eye would be set up for distance through intermediate vision. And, with the Presbyond laser platform, my left eye would serve for intermediate through to near vision. It is crucial that they overlap so that there is a blend zone, an area where both eyes are bringing something to the party. Doing that allows me to focus from distance right through intermediate to near, giving a complete range of focus.

Can you get perfect eyesight from Presbyond?

It’s a compromise. It isn’t like being twenty-one with perfect distance vision that you can shift seamlessly to near and back out again, but it is an extraordinarily powerful and effective solution that gives 90% of my patients complete vision, independent of spectacles.

The remaining patients are just using readers for really tiny print, or if they want to read for an extended period of time, particularly in bad light conditions, say in the evening when they’re tired with the lights down low.

So, that urban myth that laser eye surgery can’t treat the need for readers, which is heard on the grapevine, is wrong. We have laser eye surgery with Presbyond blended vision that allows us to give our patients distance through to near focus and results in independence from spectacles.

Want to learn more about how to be free from glasses with Presbyond Blended Laser Blended Vision?

While you’re here, you can:

• Learn more about Presbyond treatment
• Learn more about the Presbyopia (the need for reading glasses)
• Download our 40+ Guide to Vision As We Age