Old age - no hindrance to cataract treatment

Cataract is the most common eye disease among people of mature and advanced age.Causing a significant decrease in vision, the disease complicates professional activity, limits self-care and can even cause irreversible blindness.Timely appeal to an ophthalmologist and a quality cataract treatment allow a person to restore vision and return to normal lifestyle.

What is cataract?

Cataract is the opacification of the eye lens, which is a natural lens that transmits and refracts light rays.

The lens is located inside the eyeball between the iris and the vitreous body.When a person is young, his lens is transparent, elastic, able to change his form, instantly focusing on the object. Due to this property, the eye sees equally well at near and far distance.

With cataract, the transparency of the eye is lost. Due to the partial or complete clouding of the lens, only a small fraction of the light rays enter the eye, resulting in reduced vision and the person sees it vaguely and blurry.Over time, the disease progresses: turbidity increases and vision is further reduced.If cataract is not treated, then a person can completely go blind.

Cataract can begin at any age. The disease is congenital, traumatic, radiation, caused by common diseases of the body. However, most often there is a so-called age (senile) cataract, and this ailment develops in people after 50 years.

In the world, about 17 million people suffer from cataracts; mostly people who are in the age category of 60 years.According to the World Health Organization, by the age of 70-80 years, about 260 men and 460 women out of 1000 people suffer from this disease, and after 80 years almost everyone has cataracts. 20 million people in the world because of cataracts have lost their sight completely.

Causes of appearance

Normally, the lens is completely transparent.It consists of water, proteins and minerals. Lenticular nutrition is carried out due to intraocular moisture, which, developed in the eye, constantly bathes it.But with age, the products of metabolism begin to accumulate in this liquid, which have a toxic effect on the lens.This entails a violation of its nutrition, as a result of which the lens loses its former transparency.The nature of turbidity is different, so the typical variety of cataracts is quite extensive.

In addition to age, the formation of opacities of the lens is affected by certain eye diseases, as well as pathologies of other organs. These types of cataracts are called complicated. They develop with glaucoma, myopia, diseases of the choroid, retinal detachments and pigmentary dystrophies.

The cause of clouding the lens can become such common diseases as:

• diabetes;
• bronchial asthma;
• joint and blood diseases;
• some skin diseases (eczema, psoriasis).

No one is immune from cataracts.

Many external factors influence the formation and development of the disease:

• malnutrition;
• lack of vitamins (especially calcium and vitamin C);
• harmful working conditions;
• ultraviolet rays and radiation;
• unfavorable ecological situation;
• smoking.

Usually cataract starts with one eye (more often left), and then with varying intensity develops in both eyes.

Symptomatology

The name of the disease was given by the ancient Greeks.The word kataraktes means "waterfall".

In cataracts, people see "as if in a fog as if through a misted glass or through "falling water". As the cataract develops, the "nebula" of vision increases, the person feels the shroud before his eyes, the flashing of strips, spots and strokes. There is photophobia, images often bifurcate, there are difficulties in reading, writing, sewing, working with small details. At the overripe stage of cataract, the pupil color turns white.

Age-related cataract is a progressive disease that undergoes several stages of development:

1. Initial cataract(clouding of the lens occurs at the periphery, that is, outside the optical zone). The patient usually does not make any complaints, the presence of the disease can be determined by an ophthalmologist during the examination. Often, the initial stage of cataracts are discovered by doctors accidentally during a medical examination.
2. Immature cataract(turbidity advances into the central optical zone). Visual acuity is noticeably reduced. The patient complains of a thick fog before his eyes. The disease leads to difficulties in self-service and the performance of professional duties. The patient needs surgical treatment.
3. Mature cataract(opacities occupy the entire area of ​​the lens). There is a decrease in vision to the level of light perception. The patient sees only the contours of objects located at arm's length.
4. Perezrela cataract(the substance of the lens is liquefied, and it acquires a uniform milky-white hue). The patient can determine whether there is a light window in the room or light from a flashlight aimed at the eye. Pererezalaya cataract can cause numerous complications. Especially dangerous is the development of secondary glaucoma due to compression of the surrounding eye tissues with an enlarged, clouded lens. Ligaments holding the lens are also involved in the dystrophic process. They can rupture, which leads to a dislocation of the lens into the vitreous. The proteins of the ripened lens are perceived by the eye tissues as foreign, and this can cause the development of iridocyclitis.

Cataract removal in old age

Cataract manifestations are diverse, but most often they are related to a vision disorder.Like any other disease, it is better to diagnose cataracts in its early stages in order to start treatment immediately.

Methods of treatment

Medicamentous

Not many people know how to cataract the eyes. At the initial stage of cataract development, doctors recommend using eye drops:

• Quinax;
• Vita-Yodourol;
• Taufon;
• Oftan-Katachrom.

These drugs prevent the progression of opacities, but they are not able to dissolve the already existing ones.It should be remembered: the drugs and the way they are used are prescribed only by an ophthalmologist.

Surgical

The main method of getting rid of cataracts is surgical.Such an operation with cataracts of the eye is called phacoemulsification with the implantation of an artificial posterolateral intraocular lens.It is carried out in 99% of patients cases. The most favorable outcome of surgical treatment can be observed in patients with immature cataracts.

The method of phacoemulsification has been used in Russia for about 20 years.

The operation is performed under local anesthesia. The course of the operation is as follows:

1. In the eye through the corneal incision, an ultrasound tip of length m is inserted, which destroys the opaque lens.
2. An artificial flexible lens is implanted in the capsule of the lens.

The operation usually lasts no more than 20 minutes.Vision is restored as early as the first day before the preoperative level. During the recovery period, which is about 4 weeks, the patient needs to inject droplets that have an anti-inflammatory effect.In a month you can return to the usual way of life.

If the patient has a mature or overripe cataract complicated by a weakness of the ligaments supporting the lens, itra-or extracapsular cataract extraction is performed.The essence of the operation is to remove the entire lens. Instead, a rigid lens implanted to the iris or implanted in a capsule of the lens is implanted. In this case, a continuous seam is required, which can be removed only after 4-6 months.In the first months after the operation, the patient's vision is low due to post-operative reverse astigmatism.But after removing the seam, the level of vision becomes the same as that of the patient before cataract formation.The rehabilitation period is dangerous because of the divergence of the postoperative wound.

Possible complications

After removing the cloudy lens, the human eye is deprived of a very important optical part - the lens.The refractive properties of the vitreous, the cornea and the moisture of the anterior chamber are not enough for good vision.The operated eye needs an additional correction with the help of glasses, contact lenses or artificial lens.

The most optimal method of treating cataracts is implantation of an artificial lens. However, it is not always possible to apply it.The condition of the patient's eyes or blood vessels, as well as some of his diseases (frequent exacerbations of the joints, relapsing inflammations of the eyes) do not allow the implantation of an artificial lens, since they will be reduced to a minimum results of the operation.

When the cataract stage is advanced (mature and overripe), the swollen lens occupies the most part of the anterior chamber of the eye, as a result of which it disturbs the outflow of the intraocular fluid.As a result, a dangerous complication of cataract may occur - secondary glaucoma.If you do not urgently perform an operation, your eyesight can be irretrievably lost.

Do not delay treatment of cataract.

Prevention

The main way to prevent cataracts is timely access to the ophthalmologist.People in the age group of 40 years should undergo an examination once a year in the eye room to detect changes in the lens.Remember: only a specialist can determine the need for medical or surgical treatment. Do not try to cope independently with the problem in unconventional ways, folk remedies. The lost time is the main cause of irreversible blindness.

Drops have already been created and are widely used, which can slow the cataract ripening process. Such drops, called vitamin, contain amino acids, enzymes and microelements.

Their systematic use improves nutrition and metabolic processes in the lens, thereby restraining the development of cataracts.However, it is impossible to stop the process of clouding with the help of drops, you can only slow down the disease. Determine the choice and dosage of drops will help only the ophthalmologist, who will give the necessary recommendations in view of the nature of opacities and the causes that caused the onset of cataract formation.

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Dacryocystitis in adults.

How to restore vision at home read here.

Discomfort when wearing lenses: http://eyesdocs.ru/linzy/uxod/kak-izbezhat-diskomforta-pri-noshenii-kontaktnyx-linz.html

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Short about cataract: video

conclusions

So, senile cataract, even in very old age, is successfully treated. It is important not to start the disease until the mature and overripe stage, so that it is not complicated by concomitant inflammations.A proven technique of surgical intervention, a variety of models of artificial lenses, competent anesthesia - all this makes this operation minimally dangerous. Today, such operations are conducted at a high level and yield successful results.The main thing is to find out the cataract in time and not to delay with its treatment.