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Let's talk about one of the lenses that we use after cataract surgery called an accommodating
intraocular lens. It's a lot of vocabulary there, but essentially what that means is
we're removing the human lens which you see here. See these little muscle fibers that
attach to the human lens. We're taking out that human lens (because it's become a cataract)
and we're then putting into the eye a lens called an accommodating lens, which as these
muscle fibers pull on the lens, the lens actually focuses and so much the way a human lens focuses
when we're kids, we're 20 and 25, it can focus beautifully up here. By the time we're in
our middle 50s of older, we've lost that capacity. So as people develop cataracts, we can take
out the cataract, we can restore with this accommodating lens and by virtue of the muscle
fibers pulling on the capsule of a lens and moving this implant, the lens will actually
focus in for reading. The goal here is to improve distance vision and reading, decreases
depends on glasses in general, certainty patients wouldn't need bifocals after this, wouldn't
need distance correction. Probably still need a little pair of over-the-counter reading
glasses around for really tiny print, but during a work day would be independent of
them, much the way I am now. So, with my eyes now I can read the computer screen, my distance
is fabulous, and whenever I hold my hand now I get a little help, but an accommodating
lens we restore all the of that focusing ability.
Accommodating lens are about a decade old, they're improving all the time and I think
as time goes on we'll use more and more of these in more patients, but certianlly in
my post-LASIK patients, they are very power and help to restore the vision. In a traditional
cataract environment I'd use a lot as well.