Good News for Aging Eyes - Monovision and Blended Vision
Learn about blended vision and monovision and what you can do to help prevent or improve your presbyopia condition.


/Vision-Eye Care News Articles/ - May 02, 2007 - As we age, the tiny muscles in our eyes which control the lens start to become weaker. At the same time, the lens itself starts to stiffen and be less adjustable. These two developments combine to create a vision problem known as presbyopia.

When we start to need reading glasses after the age of 40 or so, we may still be able to see quite well at far distances. Eventually though, this will become impaired too, as the lens continues to stiffen and the muscles continue to weaken. It's a slow process that creeps up on us.

What is Monovision?

Normally our two eyes work together, but we can learn to separate them, and use one eye for close-up vision and the other one for far vision.

It's like a drummer, who learns to play one rhythm with his feet on the pedals, and a different rhythm, a cross-rhythm, with his sticks.

About 100 years ago, an experiment was done by a man who made some glasses which turned everything upside down. He wore these for a week or so and found that after 3 or 4 days, everything looked normal and he was able to walk around without any mishaps. When he took them off, everything looked upside down! So he had to re-learn to see normally.

Our human brains are remarkable for what they can learn. Most of us have a dominant eye. In monovision, this eye is adjusted to see far distances, and the other eye adjusted to see close-up. Our brain can learn in about 6 or 8 weeks to adjust.

Three Ways to Achieve Monovision

Monovision can be done using:
· Contact lenses
· Refractory surgery such as LASIK (blended vision)
· An implanted intraocular lens

Whichever way it's done, the brain learns to see in this new way. There's a compromise involved too, as for most people who have monovision, their visual clarity isn't perfect at either close or far distances. But it's workable, and for some people, especially those who live active lifestyles, it's a good solution.

Who is a good candidate?

Your eye surgeon will discuss the monovision option with you to see if you'd be a good candidate. If certain things are central to your lifestyle, you'd probably not want to have monovision:
· Any activities requiring very sharp distance vision
· Any activities requiring precise close-up vision
· A great deal of night driving

And if you want to have extremely sharp vision, monovision wouldn't be a good choice for you.

Blended Vision

This is a type of monovision done with laser surgery for people with presbyopia. The non-dominant eye is made a bit nearsighted so it can see well up close, and the other eye is left as the distance eye. Our brain blends these two streams of information together smoothly and we aren't aware of seeing differently from each eye.

Take a Test Run

Most eye surgeons will offer a pair of trial contact lenses so you can test blended vision before making the commitment to any laser surgery. If you find that you can't adjust comfortably, you can return to using reading glasses.

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