Sight is one of the most important senses we have: it helps us capture a faithful image of what surrounds us. For this reason, if you’ve ever found yourself squinting at road signs or wondering if everything around you has gotten a little blurrier, you may need to delve into the world of cataracts, a condition that translates into a vision that blurs what comes to us from abroad and a problem that in Spain affects 36% of the population over the age of 50.
A percentage that rises to almost 50% in people between 60 and 70 years old and 70% in people between 70 and 80 years old, according to data from the Spanish Society of Implant-Refractory Ocular Surgery (SECOIR). Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) also reveal that cataracts cause moderate to severe vision loss in more than 80% of cases, although they are relatively easy to treat and eliminate.
What is a waterfall
As explained by Dr. Verónica Gómez Calleja, a specialist in the Ophthalmology Service of the cornea, anterior pole and glaucoma section of the Infanta Elena University Hospital, “to fully understand what a cataract is, we first have to understand what the lens is,” the transparent part. of the eye that helps us focus light.
The lens is a lentil-shaped, transparent and elastic structure and is responsible for deflecting light rays that enter the eye to help us see and focus on objects. For vision to be correct, the lens must be transparent since its mission is to act as a natural lens.
However, when it loses transparency and becomes opaque, it is as if we were looking through foggy or dusty glass: objects look blurry, diffuse and less colorful. “It is what we call cataracts, a completely painless process but which can cause loss of vision,” warns Gómez Calleja.
What symptoms does someone with cataracts have?
Cataracts may not be noticed at first because they tend to develop slowly. Therefore, initially, when these are mild, they usually do not present symptoms. But, over time and as they grow, some symptoms may appear and cause “frequent changes in prescription, or greater difficulty seeing at night, or a reduction in the perception of contrast, vision becoming blurred, cloudy or more dull or yellowish,” says Gómez Calleja. Increased sensitivity to light, or glare around bright lights, or even overlapping vision of different objects may also occur.
All of this causes the appearance of problems reading or carrying out other daily activities such as driving or watching television, although vision loss is usually more pronounced in distance vision.
Who can have cataracts
According to Dr. Gómez Calleja “any person can develop cataracts and there are different risk factors that can predispose to their formation; age, diabetes, tobacco, alcohol, ionizing radiation and a long etcetera. The most common are those that are related to age, called senile cataracts, and they usually begin to appear after the age of 50.”
This would explain why, in cases in which cataracts are associated with age, their presence cannot be prevented. However, modifiable risk factors such as alcohol or tobacco consumption can be influenced.
Surgery, the only option for cataract if it affects vision
The treatment of cataracts is based on the level of visual impairment they cause: if it minimally affects vision, or does not affect it at all, no treatment may be necessary, although greater control of visual symptoms and periodic check-ups may be necessary.
But when a cataract progresses to the point of affecting the ability to perform daily tasks, it is necessary to resort to surgery, which involves the extraction of the lens of the eye and its replacement with an artificial lens since we are facing an impairment against which there is no There is pharmacological treatment that cures or prevents it.
“Currently there is no treatment that solves a cataract without surgery,” says Dr. Gómez Calleja, according to whom this is advisable in the case in which the patients’ vision and quality of life are affected. With the operation, what is achieved is “removing the opacified lens and replacing it with an intraocular lens,” says the Doctor, which allows a definitive solution to be reached.
Furthermore, cataract surgery, together with an appropriate intraocular lens, often allows us to “correct refractive errors such as myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism,” says the Doctor.
To the question about whether glasses can be dispensed with after surgery, the expert responds with “it depends, a preoperative study of the patient must be carried out to select the intraocular lens that we are going to implant in each case. There are monofocal lenses for distance vision that require near glasses and lenses that offer broader coverage such as multifocal or bifocal, so that the patient is independent of glasses but for which certain specific conditions must be met to ensure a successful result. .”
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