Bifocal Contact Lens Designs Give Patients More Options

Bifocal contact lens designs have opened a new world for those with eye problems in the 40 and up age bracket. In the past, about the only way to help patients with age-related presbyopia was conventional glasses designed for seeing distance at the top and near on the bottom. Traditional bifocal glasses were standard issue for eye patients for many years.

Some optometry offices used reading glasses over distance-vision contact lenses before bifocal contacts became available. But patients had to remove the glasses quite frequently and became a bother to many. Now, options exist for presbyopia patients, so they too can wear contact lenses.

Bifocal contact lens can be purchased in both rigid gas permeable (RGP) and soft contact styles, depending on which you prefer and your ability to wear them. Since 1999, disposable soft lenses have been available for patients who like to wear a new pair daily. Also, soft contacts come in a frequent replacement style that allow you to wear the contacts for a designated time period and then toss them away. The rigid gas permeable lenses are made of a different material than hard contact of the past. The new RGP lenses allow oxygen to pass through them, giving the eye much more comfort and less dryness associated with wearing contacts.

Monovision is one of the other lens designs that help presbyopia patients with eye difficulties. In monovision, one eye wears a contact that has distance ability; the other wears a contact for up close reading. The distance lens is usually given to the dominant of the two eyes. Most patients state that learning to use monovision bifocal lenses are at first a little strange but they quickly get used to it.