Healthy Aging Month

The month of September is Healthy Aging Month. Want to live an active lifestyle and without possible vision loss? Make sure you visit your eye doctor and get a comprehensive eye exam. 

As you age you are at a higher risk of developing age-related eye diseases.  These eye diseases may have no early signs and symptoms. 

Your eye doctor can give you a comprehensive dilated eye exam to help detect eye diseases in the early stages and prevent vision loss.

We have quite a few tips and tricks to share with you. We’re breaking down different symptoms to look out for as you age.

Do you find yourself at your computer all day? If so, you need to be regularly scheduling eye exams to keep them healthy. For those 65 and older, as well as those with family history of eye disease, it is advised that you visit your eye care practitioner more frequently. These exams regularly check for different, age-related, eye diseases. Like presbyopia, Cataracts, Dry Eyes, and Glaucoma.

Presbyopia is a normal part of aging that becomes more apparent as people approach their 40s and 50s. As the human body ages, the lens inside the eye grows like rings on a tree. It loses its elasticity, and therefore its ability to easily change focus, making it more difficult to read smaller print.

Cataracts are one of the leading causes of visual loss in adults 55 and older.

Your eye works a lot like a camera, using a lens to focus on an image. If your camera lens becomes cloudy, you’d have a hard time viewing the world around you. Just like a camera, the lenses in your eyes can become cloudy as you age, making it harder for you to see.

Dry Eye is a cornea disease that results from the eye’s reduced ability to produce tears. Aqueous tear-deficient dry eye is a disorder in which the lacrimal glands fail to produce enough of the watery component of tears to maintain a healthy eye surface.

Inflammation of the meibomian glands. These glands make the lipid part of tears that slows evaporation and keeps the tears stable.

Age Related Macular Degeneration is a common eye condition and a leading cause of vision loss among people age 50 and older. It causes damage to the macula, a small spot near the center of the retina.

Glaucoma is a disease that damages your eye’s optic nerve. Your odds of developing glaucoma increase as you get older. About 1 in 20 adults 65 and older develop glaucoma. It usually happens when fluid builds up in the front part of your eye. That extra fluid increases the pressure in your eye, damaging the optic nerve.

With all of the age-related disorders it is important to have regularly scheduled exams with your local optometrist.