Blended Vision

(Blended Vision) 

Blended Vision: THE WAY TO ACHIEVE EYEGLASSES INDEPENDENCE  

Difficulty focusing on near objects begins at around age 42. This difficulty gradually increases and levels off when one reaches around age 70. After cataract surgery all patients will have about the same difficulty focusing on near objects as someone 70 years old.

The first goal of cataract surgery is to enable one to see clearly with eyeglasses. The second goal is to minimize or eliminate one's need for eyeglasses.

At the time of cataract surgery a clear plastic lens is implanted into the position of the cloudy natural lens which is removed. Prior to surgery measurements are taken in our office to determine the lens implant power that will minimize one's need for eyeglasses after the procedure.

If the implant power is chosen for clear distance vision without eyeglasses, one will need reading glasses for near vision. One approach to address this is to set the dominant eye for distance vision and the nondominant eye for near vision without eyeglasses. This is called Blended Vision. The near vision eye is made somewhat nearsighted to help to focus on near objects; however it will be blurry in that eye without eyeglasses for seeing distant objects. The idea is that with both eyes open one will not be aware of the difference between the two eyes and both distant and near objects will appear clear without eyeglasses.   This works very well for most patients.

It should be made clear that setting the power of the implant is not 100% accurate. The measurements we take are very good at determining the power but not perfect. Sometimes we will fine tune the result with a separate laser vision correcting procedure (LASIK or PRK) several months later to decrease the need for eyeglasses.

Many but not all patients do well with Blended Vision.  To maximize the success of this we try not to make the nondominant eye so nearsighted that even the smallest near objects can be read. This would cause too much of a difference between the two eyes and make it more difficult to tolerate.  In general we aim for the clearest distance vision we can get with the dominant eye, and we set the nondominant eye for an intermediate near range so near objects like computer print and cell phones can be seen easily.  For finer print or in dim light situations drug store reading glasses are used for a little extra magnification.  In this way we achieve great success with clear distance vision and independence from eyeglasses for many near tasks. For those rare patients who find they cannot tolerate any difference between the two eyes then LASIK or PRK can be used to eliminate the nearsightedness from the nondominant eye so both eyes are set for distance.

For those patients who want to see as clearly as possible at both distance and near without eyeglasses after cataract surgery we highly recommend Blended Vision.