What is hyperopia/hypermetropia/longsight?
Hyperopia (also known as hypermetopia or longsight) is a focusing error (‘refractive error’), and not a eye disease. A hyperopic eye can be thought of as an eye that is too small for it’s focusing power. People with hyperopia can have blurred near vision, but often hyperopia can be masked by the eye’s own focusing, called accommodation. There is currently no ‘cure’ to stop hyperopia occurring. The eye’s own focusing can often correct the blur associated with hyperopia, so sometimes a partial correction of the total hyperopia is sufficient to relieve any eyestrain. Correcting the hyperopia does not in itself make the eyes weaker. As the eye’s own focusing naturally becomes weaker with age, more hyperopia is often revealed, so that the strength of the correcting lens increases. Similarly, those with hyperopia will often find glasses need to be worn more frequently as they get older too. Hyperopia is often confused with presbyopia, since the latter also affects the near vision. Presbyopia
