Posts Tagged ‘bifocal’

Optician’s Corner: Have you ever been asked your height when filling your glasses prescription?

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Truclear HD Plus, the next generation no-line bifocal (progressive) lens, incorporates patient height and many more custom parameters in it’s unique design

moz screenshot 1 Opticians Corner: Have you ever been asked your height when filling your glasses prescription?moz screenshot Opticians Corner: Have you ever been asked your height when filling your glasses prescription?

This is truly another one of those exciting times to be in the optical field.  We are witnessing great advances in prescription lens technology that continue to improve the experience of our patients.   In fact, Clearview Eye Care has started using a progressive lens that is significantly more advanced than lenses from just a few years ago.

This new progressive lens, called Truclear HD Plus, is digitally made and completely and uniquely customized for each patient.  This is critical for the visual comfort of our patients to have these custom designed and manufactured lenses.   As we’ve seen in the past, we can take a person’s prescription and fill it in two different progressive lens designs.   Almost always, one will work better because it more closely matches the needs of the individual.   But now, we can take all these variables into consideration and design the best progressive lens possible for each patient.

Along with the prescription from Dr. Beach, the Truclear HD Plus incorporates the following parameters in the lens design:

  • patient’s height
  • distance from the back of the glasses to the surface of the eye
  • degree of curvature in the face part of the eyeglasses
  • degree of tilt the lenses will make once inside the glasses.

Research has shown that all of these parameters actually affect how a person experiences vision through their glasses and now we are able to fully customize that experience with Truclear HD Plus.   This really is a remarkable advancement in technology.

If you are currently wearing traditional progressive lenses, now is a great time to try the new, fully-customized Truclear HD Plus.

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Study Finds that Bifocals May Slow Progression of Nearsightedness in Children

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Last month, I touched on a recent study that showed a drastic increase in the number of people with myopia (nearsightedness) over the last 30 years in the U.S.    Not only is the number of people with myopia a public health concern, but so is the progression or worsening of myopia experienced by some children throughout their developing years.

In my practice, it is pretty common to see children that need increasingly stronger and stronger prescriptions, and this process can be concerning and frustrating to both the child and parents.

That is why I’m very interested in a recent study published in The Archives of Ophthalmology that demonstrated the use of bifocals with prisms (and bifocals without prisms) significantly slowed the progression of myopia in children.

In the new study, researchers studied 135 Chinese Canadian children who were diagnosed with progressive myopia, meaning myopia that had worsened significantly over the previous year. The children, whose average age was 10, were assigned to wear either single-vision lenses, bifocals or bifocals with prism, a type of correction that is ground into lenses to help the eyes work together and enhance near vision.

After two years, researchers found the progression of myopia was most rapid among those who wore single-vision lenses. The slowest rate of progression was among children who wore prismatic bifocals — a 58% difference in the rate of progression compared to children wearing single-vision lenses. There was a 38% difference in the rate of progression between users of standard bifocals and users of single-vision lenses.

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Ask Dr. Beach: Multifocal Contacts

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Ask Dr. Beach logo1 300x158 Ask Dr. Beach: Multifocal Contacts

Q:   “Do bifocal contacts work like regular bifocals? Do you have to look down to be able to read up close?”

This question was posed on our Facebook Fan Page and it’s one of my favorite questions to answer.

Bifocal contact lenses work very differently from bifocal glasses.  When a person is wearing bifocal or no-line bifocal (progressive) glasses the reading prescription is towards the bottom of the lenses.  As a result, the person must move their eyes down and the clear reading area will be found.

However, bifocal contact lenses (which I prefer to call multifocal due to their ability to address far, computer, and reading distances) work on a completely different concept.   Most multifocal contacts work based on pupil reactions.   When an individual looks up close to read, the pupils constrict and become a completely different size than when that individual is looking at street signs far away.   Multifocal contacts take advantage of this natural variation in pupil sizes by placing distant and near prescriptions in different areas of the lenses.

There are several different manufacturers of multifocal contacts, and they each have their own unique method of distributing the prescription across the diameter of the lens.   The two most common designs are:

Yet, the best multifocal contact lens design will ultimately depend on the person’s prescription, their visual requirements, and pupil size.    But with several brands, and more expected in the near future, there are numerous options for those who need bifocal glasses and want to experience the convenience of contact lenses.

Do you have an eye care question that you would like answered here on the blog?   If so, let me know by email at doctor@clearvieweye.net.

Take care,

Dr. Beach

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