Vision is the best gift from god to humans and although eye is compared to a camera, but till date no camera has reached the level of perfection that eye has. Eye functions to focus objects around us with perfect clarity. In a normal person (emmetropia) refraction occurs at the cornea and the lens and the rays of light come to a precise focus onto the retina without any extra effort to focus. The inability of the eye to accurately focus the rays of light coming from distance on the retina is called refractive error. There are different types of refractive errors:

Myopia (near-sightedness):
This is the condition where the light is focused in front of the retina. The reason for same could be either the eye is too long or the converging power of the eye i.e. the curvature of cornea is increased. The vision for distance is blurred but the patient can see near objects relatively clearly.

Hypermetropia (far-sightedness):
This is the condition where the light is focused behind the retina. In hyperopia either the eye is too short or the converging power of eye i.e. the curvature of cornea is less than normal. The latter can be overcome by increase use of eye muscles which cause change in shape of natural lens where it’s converging power increases and the objects are focussed on retina (accommodation). When young, the eye’s accommodative power is high and patient doesn’t feel the strain but with age when the accommodative power of eye decreases, the symptoms like headache, strain etc appears. Reading glasses are needed at a relatively early age. Later, distance glasses (plus) are needed as well.

Astigmatism:
This is the condition where the eye does not focus the light evenly, usually due to the cornea of the eye being more curved in one direction than the other. This causes light to focus on more than one point in the eye, resulting in blurred vision at distance or near. Astigmatism often occurs along with nearsightedness or farsightedness. Patients with astigmatism have a tendency to squeeze their eyes to see the things clearly.

Presbyopia
Presbyopia is the normal aging process, where the lens progressively loses its capacity to increase its power for near vision (loss of accommodation). Presbyopia is generally believed to stem from a gradual loss of flexibility of the natural lens inside our eye. The eye’s lens stiffens with age, losing its ability to focus at near objects. The distance vision may be normal, but the near vision becomes blurred with age greater than about 40 years. This is corrected by wearing reading glasses (plus) for the near work. This condition may occur in itself or may be present along with pre-existing myopia, hypermetropia or astigmatism.

What are the ways of treating refractive errors?

The refractive errors may be treated by either of the following ways:
  • Glasses : this is the simplest and most popular way of correcting refractive errors

  • Contact lens: it is cosmetically better option though the maintenance and cleaning of contact lenses may be cumbersome. There is also a slight risk of infection to the cornea, if the contact lenses are not cleaned properly before use.

  • Refractive surgeries: these are increasingly becoming popular with the advent of more predictable laser treatments.

Our centre provides all possible treatments including the latest and the most advanced options for correction of all types of refractive errors suiting your condition and budget.