Basics · 7 min read
What is presbyopia? Symptoms, causes and solutions.
Why near vision fades from around 40, what is physically happening in the eye, and what can actually be done about it.
Presbyopia is the gradual loss of the eye's ability to change focus for close work. The crystalline lens stiffens with age, so the ciliary muscle can no longer reshape it enough to bring near objects into focus. It is not a disease and it is not avoidable: essentially everyone develops it.
The first signs are practical rather than dramatic. Menus and phone screens are held further away, small print needs brighter light, and reading for long stretches becomes tiring. Because the change is slow, most people adapt before they name it.
Corrections all work by moving the focal point back into range: reading glasses, progressive lenses, multifocal contacts, and surgical options. Glassless adds one more route — pre-compensating the image on the display itself, so the screen is legible without a lens in front of the eye.