Women often need bifocals sooner than men of approximately the same age. “While it may come as a surprise and may not be obvious, we actually see this pretty often during regular eye exams,” noted Tyler Hall, M.D., Ophthalmologist & Corneal Specialist at Alabama Eye & Cataract Center in Birmingham, AL. Researchers reporting the journal Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science (IOVS) found that women tend to need bifocals sooner to correct their near vision and the onset of presbyopia-the age related near vision focusing problem. The studies show that presbyopia, the inability to see at a close distance that occurs with age, is more common in women. While men and women need bifocals as they age, the need is more common among women and tends to hit them at younger ages than men. “It is believed that while men and women appeared to actually have the same focusing ability when looking at nearby objects, because women are generally shorter than the men, with proportionally shorter arm lengths, they needed to hold objects closer to their faces when reading and thus required the near vision presbyopia correction of bifocals, reading glasses or even bifocal contact lenses sooner,” explained Dr. Hall.
Michelson Laser Vision and Alabama Eye & Cataract Center are leading eye care centers in Birmingham staffed by a team of specialists including eye doctors who are fellowship trained cornea specialists and cataract and lens implant specialists-all board certified Ophthalmologists & Corneal Specialists-as well as Optometrists, Opticians, technical and administrative staff who provide eye examinations for adults and children, cataract surgery and intraocular lens implants (IOL), laser eye surgery such as LASIK for laser vision correction, diagnosis and treatment of cornea disease including cornea transplants, care for diseases of the retina including diabetes and age related macular degeneration and diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma and fitting of eyeglasses and eyewear.
