Here’s what you should know about this common elective eye surgery: cataract surgery.
The environment can get slightly more hazy as we age. A frequent condition affecting many elderly Americans is cataracts, or clouding of the lens of the eye. According to the National Eye Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health, some 25 million Americans aged 40 and above have cataracts. Furthermore, as one ages, there is a noticeable increase in the chance of developing cataracts.
Cataract-related vision problems might increase the likelihood of collisions and injuries. Dr. Mitchell Brinks, head of Vision 2020/USA, a nationwide coalition of eye care organizations focused on blindness prevention, and assistant professor of ophthalmology at the OHSU School of Medicine, states that “in a practical sense, cataracts really increase the risk of car accidents and falls.”
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Cataract Surgery
Types of cataract surgery
Cataract surgery is a fairly standardized procedure, and eye surgeons say that’s one reason for consistently high success rates. Still, there’s some variation with cataract surgeries.
There are two main types of cataract surgery performed today:
- Phacoemulsification, or phaco.
- Extracapsular cataract surgery.
Phaco is the most common cataract procedure. A surgeon uses a handheld, pen-shaped probe inserted through a small incision in the cornea, the front surface of the eye. That device transmits ultrasound waves to break up the lens with the cataract. The eye is irrigated and then the pieces of the lens are suctioned out. A clear replacement lens is then inserted.
Risks
While the rate of complications is low, as with any procedure, cataract surgery carries risks that can affect the eye or vision. Those include:
- Infection.
- Swelling or inflammation.
- Retinal detachment.
- Damage to the eye.
- Vision loss.
- Glaucoma.
- The artificial lens can shift or move out of position.
Benefits
Besides reducing the risk of falls and automobile accidents, correcting cataracts can greatly improve a person’s overall quality of life, eye surgeons emphasize. “It’s kind of discouraging and frustrating for people not to function like they used to,” Brinks says.
Removing a fogged lens and replacing it with one that allows light to pass through unabated can improve clarity of vision, depth perception and contrast sensitivity, which is important to be able to see things at night or at dusk. The surgery can also enhance a person’s ability to see color again. That’s something Brinks hears patients comment on a lot. “That dress is so red, or the flowers are so yellow, or the sky was so blue—and they’re almost as excited about that as the improved clarity.”
Where to have surgery
Regulation and, again, standardization of cataract procedures mean that patients should expect a consistently high rate of effectiveness with the surgery, most anywhere they have it done.
Still, what shouldn’t be ignored is the number of procedures done at a particular health care facility, especially by an eye surgeon. Some eye surgeons emphasize, too, the importance of updated equipment, such as calculating the right prescription for a lens. But that’s a supplement to, not a replacement for, doing a high volume of cataract surgeries. Compared with other surgeries, eye surgery especially takes much repetition to hone skills. “It’s a much more complex surgery, even though it’s so fast,” Habash says. “So you have to go to someone who does a lot of these.”
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Disclaimer: The opinions and suggestions expressed in this article are solely those of the individual analysts. These are not the opinions of HNN. For more, please consult with your doctor
