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What is Cataract?
Human eye has a natural lens which is normally transparent and forms a clear image of the outside world in the eye. When this lens develops haziness / opacity the sight is decreased or may be completely lost - this is called cataract.
What causes Cataract?
Cataract may develop at any age - right from birth to old age - but is most commonly seen in the old after the age of 60 years. By the age of 90 years almost 98 % of people have had cataract. Cataract seen in the old age may be caused by normal aging process but seen at younger age is caused by many disease processes e.g. some eye diseases like uveitis, general diseases like diabetes, heredity, injury, radiation, infections and many more.
What are the symptoms?
The most important symptom of cataract is a decrease in vision / sight for distance & / or near objects. Other features can be decrease vision in bright or low light, decreased contrast, glare, altered colour appreciation, seeing many images of one object, rapid changes in the number / power of glasses, or sometimes pain, redness and watering. In advanced cases there is complete loss of sight and pupil becomes pearly white in colour. However, none of these symptoms are seen exclusively in cataract.
Cataract Surgery
The operations done for cataract are the following (the list includes only established standard procedures):
1. Phacoemulsification with foldable Intraocular Lens (IOL) implantation
/ Non foldable PMMA lens (No-Stitch Surgery).
2. Small incision manual Expression of nucleus with Non-foldable
PMMA lens Implantation.
Phacoemulsification
Vijaya Eya Clinic & Research Centre offers the most sophisticated, state-of-Art Microsurgery for Cataract. A 3mm. clear corneal incision with diamond knife,
capsulorrhexis, ultrasonic fragmentation of the nucleus and aspiration of the fragmented material by vacuum which are fully assisted by computerised Diplomax Phako Machine. The foldable lens which is 6 mm. in diameter is folded to 3 mm. and injection into the capsule bag throug an injector. Small clear corneal valve incision does not require any stitch and visual recovery is rapid.
If multifocal lenses are implanted, there is no need to use any glasses as the patient can see both distance and near objects clearly after surgery.
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AMO Dimplomax
phacoemulsifier from Allergan, States which has additional
features like burst mode & very safe fluidics
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The advantages over the old conventional techniques are:
1. Instantaneous visual recovery.
2. Reduses post-op follow ups.
3. Sutureless and bloodless surgery with least trauma to the intraocular structure.
4. Topical anasthesia can be used instead of local anaesthesia.
5. Incidence of cystoid macular edema & retinal detachment following cataract surgery are reduced.
6. Incidence of post operative astigmatism and its magnitude is significantly reduced.
7. By placing multifocal lens in the bag, the near natural sight of distance, intermediate and near vision is restored.
8. Patient can resume their activities and work from the third day.
9. Comfortable post op period-patients never feel that they have undergone surgery.
Intraocular Lens (IOL)
Intra-ocular Lenses (IOL) are small (5-7 mm) lenses made of a soft polymers viz., silicone, acrylic or PMMA and are implanted inside the eye in place of natural lens. The greatest advantage of IOL is a clear wide field of vision and the fact that the patient does not have to constantly wear thick glasses. However, glasses with low power may be still be required to be worn especially for reading distant and near small print. The reason being that unlike natural lens the IOL has a fixed power (estimated by doing Ultrasound of the eye) which is usually adjusted such that the mid-range or routine viewing distances are seen clearly, and for distances closer or further low powered glasses may still be needed.. Since the IOL stays in the eye lifelong therefore there should not be any compromise on the quality of the
IOL.
Multifocal Foldable IOL
A recent advance in the field of cataract surgery is introduction of Multifocal Foldable Intraocular Lens called the Array by Allergan. This lens has multiple zones of varying converging powers on its front surface and is made of silicone.. The distant objects, mid-range and near objects, all are in focus and thus there is virtually no need of any glasses.
These IOLs are definitely an option to get rid of glasses after cataract surgery.
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