Our eyes show changes in performance as we start to age. These changes normally take place on their own and are generally progressive.

While some of these changes such as ‘presbyopia’ are deemed as extremely normal, some conditions such as cataracts and age-related macular degeneration are more likely to cause vision loss or blindness. These conditions are common among seniors above 60 years.

Changes in your vision won’t only happen as you age. They may also occur due to bad lifestyle habits or environmental factors such as smoking or unhealthy eating. This will need you to wear prescription glasses to make up for your refractive error.

Let’s know what vision changes you should expect in the later part of your life and how they will affect your life.

Common vision changes

Here are some of the common sight changes that everyone will experience in their lives irrespective of what their lifestyle is.

Presbyopia

Once you hit 40, your near vision will start to decline which will make you need reading glasses. This occurs as the crystalline lens in your eye starts to lose its ability to change shape. As a result, your eyes will have less flexibility and you will be struggling to see nearby objects clearly.

You can put up with this problem for a little while by holding the reading material a little closer than you normally would. But, you will need a pair of good-quality readers eventually. Since they only have a magnification strength and not the optical power, you can buy your reading glasses online.

Cataracts

Cataracts is the next very common eye condition in seniors. Most people who are over 60 encounter this problem and it only gets more common going further.

In this eye condition, the crystalline lens inside our eye goes through some changes and becomes cloudy. Cataracts can make your vision blurred and you may even become sensitive to bright lights. However, even if you have lost 100% vision to cataracts, your vision can be restored with a surgery. Your cloudy lens will be replaced with a new clear artificial lens.

Age-related macular degeneration or AMD

Although AMD is not considered to be a part of normal ageing, it is the leading cause of blindness in people. More than 1.5 senior citizens in the UK have this eye age-related eye disease.

This condition takes place due to degeneration of the macula that makes for your sharp central vision. People with AMD can see a blurry spot in the center of their vision field which can make both close up and distant tasks difficult to perform. This will need you to wear varifocal glasses that have multiple optical power on their lenses so you get perfect visibility at all distances.

Continuous exposure for long hours to the artificial blue light emitted from your digital devices also amplifies your chances of developing AMD. So if you have a lot of screen-related work to do, consider wearing blue light glasses. You can get blue light glasses in the UK both online and offline.

Glaucoma

Glaucoma accounts for 10% of the visual impairment cases among people over 75 in the UK. Our eyes and brain are connected with optic nerves. When the channels in your cornea get blocked, the eye fluid keeps accumulating in the front part of the eye. It builds up the pressure inside your eyes and as a result, your optic nerves get damaged.

People in their 40s only have 1% chances of developing glaucoma but it dramatically increases to 12% as you approach your 80s.

Diabetic retinopathy

Being one of the leading causes of vision loss in diabetic population in the UK, diabetic retinopathy is a critical eye condition that damages your retinal cells in the back of your eye. If not diagnosed and treated early, you will experience irreversible vision loss. As this disease is not presented with any symptoms in the initial stages, its presence can be detected with a comprehensive dilated eye exam.

If you have diabetes, make sure you get an eye test every year. Vision loss is one of the common complications of diabetes.

The takeaway

Adopting healthy lifestyle habits and eating a healthy diet will act as a natural defense mechanism against vision loss as you age. As soon as you hit the milestone of 40, routine eye exams become even more important.