What is hyperopia?
Hyperopia is sometimes known as long-sightedness, and is the ability to see clearly in the distance but worse at near. It is the opposite of myopia, where close details are clear but the distance is blurry.
What is the difference between hypermetropia and hyperopia?
There is no difference between hypermetropia and hyperopia! These two words can be used interchangeably to describe the same phenomenon of long-sightedness. The preference for one or the other may vary between practitioners and regions.
What does vision look like with hyperopia?
The quality of vision for someone with hyperopia depends on how severe their long-sightedness is. For mild cases, there may be no symptoms or blur at any distance. In moderate cases, the distance may be clear but near targets may be out of focus. Severe cases may have blurriness at all distances, but worse still up close.
What is the main cause of hyperopia?
The main cause of hyperopia is having an eye that is shorter from front to back than is typical. This leaves light bending “behind” the back of the eye, where it ought to have focused if the eye were longer. In cases of high degrees of hyperopia, there is usually a genetic component and may be associated with other health conditions.
Should I wear my glasses all the time if I am long-sighted/far-sighted?
You should wear your glasses as directed by your optometrist. For some, especially young kids, they may have glasses that are only intended for classroom or near-working situations. Others with worse long-sightedness may be reliant upon them for all distances throughout their entire life. If glasses are not appealing to you, contact lenses may be a great alternative or supplement.
Does hyperopia get worse with age?
Long-sightedness can mean that vision becomes blurrier with age, particularly from around 40 years old and beyond. This is the time of life when our in-built camera lens system becomes stiff and loses its ability to help us keep vision clear. How bad it gets depends on how strong the underlying prescription is. If you are concerned that your sight is deteriorating in the distance, book in a test with us at IC Optometrist.
That’s the hyperopia highlights!
If you want to take your grasp of farsightedness far deeper, keep reading below!
Is your close up vision worse than your distance clarity? Do your eyes get “burnt out” by the end of the day? Has all of this been worsening as you approach 40? It’s not a longshot to say you may have long-sightedness, or hyperopia.
Hyperopia or hypermetropia (same thing, don’t worry) is a relatively common condition where vision is typically blurrier or requires more effort at near, while the distance is clearer. This word for long-sightedness comes to us from a combination of latin and greek, like all good stolen English words; the Latin “hyper” means “beyond” or “excess”, while the Greek “ōps” means “eye”. Essentially it describes light focusing behind the eye.
Hyperopia is most commonly seen in early school age children and becomes less common in older age groups. It is also more common in rural and white populations, but there has been no clear evidence to link it with gender, family income, nor parental schooling. There is a known link between maternal smoking and development of hyperopia, but that doesn’t mean we should combat the myopia epidemic by handing out vapes to pregnant people.
But what does it mean to have hyperopia? Take a look at the picture below demonstrating “normal vision”.
Here we see light entering the eye and focusing to a single point at the back of the eye. For effortlessly clear vision, this point should be right on our macula - a small pit of sensitive cells used for collecting detailed central clarity.
In hyperopia, this focal point actually lands further back than the macula, leaving a blurry image to land on that sensitive pit. However, many long-sighted people don’t see the world as especially blurry. How can that be?
Our eyes contain a lens (seen in the above diagrams) which functions like a camera to bring things that are out of focus back into clarity. So as long as the light hasn’t landed too far behind the eye, our lens system can put in some effort to pull that point forward and clear up the vision. But there is a trade off!
When we look at something close, that light naturally lands behind the eye like the above diagram, even in people with “normal vision”. That’s why we have the lens in the first place, to keep these near targets in focus. So for long-sighted folks, their lens system has to work extra hard to clear up close objects. In many cases, the amount of work may be too hard to maintain and this near space will be forced to remain out of focus.
So what causes hyperopia? The biggest factor is actually the size of your eyeballs. The vast bulk of long-sighted cases are in people with eyes that are shorter from front to back compared to average. The shape is almost like a basketball that someone is sitting on. In severe cases where the eyeball is dramatically small, there is usually a genetic mutation to blame. These people usually have a focal point so far behind the eye that even distant vision is blurry, with the near worse still.
Hyperopia may cause a range of symptoms related to overuse of the focusing system, whether the vision is blurred or not. You may experience:
Fatigue at the end of the day
Difficulty reading
Double vision, particularly at close range
Dull ache and pain in and around the eyes
Strain
Squinting
In some cases, the degree of hyperopia (i.e. the extent of defocusing behind the eye) may be so great that it causes more serious effects on visual development. It may lead to:
Inefficient teamwork between the eyes (binocular vision)
Poor depth perception (aka stereopsis)
“Lazy eye”, which may show up as an eye turn and/or reduced vision even when corrected
Learning delays
There are many studies suggesting uncorrected hyperopia in children leads to a wide range of difficulties at school, especially in development of literacy skills like letter recognition and reading speed. (For a super deep dive, please explore the references section at the end of the article). If you have concerns about your child’s performance at school, book them in with us. We offer a thorough paediatric assessment and will highlight any struggling areas of visual development. More importantly, we offer pathways to building these skills to support their education.
Hyperopia is easily correctable with spectacles, contact lenses, or even surgery if needed. At IC Optometrist, our comprehensive eye exams will not only identify long-sightedness, but will offer you the very best in optical solutions. After achieving your clearest possible sight with a precise prescription, we will involve you in the discussion of what would best solve your problems. Whether that be spectacles using the DNEye scanner for completely tailor-made lenses, contact lenses for sport or school, or referring to specialists as and when needed.
Don’t put up with sore, tired eyes. Don’t push through blurry close up images. Book in to see one of the team at IC Optometrist to make a difference in you or your loved one’s life today.
Written by:
Jacob Owen, Optometrist
References:
Hyperopia (2018) www.etymonline.com. Available at: https://www.etymonline.com/word/hyperopia (Accessed: July 2024).
Σχόλια