What is the connection between hyperopia and presbyopia?
From birth onward, everyone’s accommodation (focusing power) diminishes. By midlife, presbyopia (normal, age-related focusing difficulty for near) will make focusing impossible for some close range activities. Reading glasses or bifocals can almost always supply the power needed. For most people, presbyopia comes on around the age of 45 or so, but far-sighted people can be affected as young as 25 or 30. This difference exists because farsighted eyes that are not corrected with glasses are already using up some of their accommodation to see at all distances. Because there is less accommodation remaining, it tends to “run out” sooner. It is the depleted accommodation that creates the presbyopia. However, if the farsightedness is corrected with glasses, presbyopia will be put off until 45 or so, the time it would normally occur.
