New ways to manage old causes of vision loss

Eye health experts are constantly finding new ways to help us see, even though the reasons we suffer vision loss haven't really changed. Here's the four biggest threats, and how you can have better eye health.

• Presbiopia is the loss of the ability to focus on close objects.
• It affects virtually all adults beginning in their forties. By the mid-fifties, the decrease usually ends. This leaves many adults with reading glasses, but no other significant damage.
• Behind this problem is merely the loss of elasticity of the lens in your eye, along with the loss of power of the muscles that bend and straighten that lens.

This condition is where the normally clear lens in your eyes may grow so cloudy that your vision blurs. Half of all people over 80 develop cataracts.

A leading cause of blindness in developed countries, age-related macular degeneration (AMD )slowly damages your retina, the thin lining on the back of the eye that collects visual images.

Your optic nerve, which transmits images to your brain, may become damaged by too much fluid pressure inside your eyes. Once glaucoma's damage begins, you have a 50 percent risk of going blind in at least one eye within 20 years, unless you take action.

• Get regular eye exams by an ophthalmologist or optician. Starting in your forties, you should be examined every two to four years until you're 64, then every one or two years after that.
• The eye doctor should enlarge (dilate) your pupils by putting drops in your eyes. This is the only way to find some eye diseases that have no early signs or symptoms.
• The eye doctor should also test your eyesight, your glasses and your eye muscles.

• If your doctor does spot a problem, take action immediately.
• There's no reversing glaucoma and AMD. But the earlier they're caught, the more vision you can save.
• Prescription-only eyedrops can lower inner-eye pressure that destroys the optic nerve in glaucoma. In studies, these drops have slowed or halted its advance.

Exciting new research proves that catching vision problems early, and treating them with newer, more-effective strategies, could save the sight of millions of older people. To improve your chances, stay vigilant and see your eye doctor regularly.