Patients are developing cataracts at an earlier age, according to eye hospital group Optegra Eye Health Care.
Consumer research carried out for Optegra by Censuswide in April, among 2,231 British adults aged 16 years and above, found a third of British adults knew someone who had been diagnosed and treated for cataracts in their 50s or 60s.
Optegra leading ophthalmic surgeon Anne Gilvarry said: ‘Ten years ago, if I had seen someone in their 50s who had cataracts, I would have been really concerned, ordering extra scans and blood tests. But now, I regularly see such patients.’
Almost a fifth of enquiries Optegra had received regarding cataract treatment were now from people in their 40s and 50s. It said further research was needed but believed causes could be the impact of UV, trauma, diabetes, other eye problems such as myopia and vitrectomy surgery.
Gilvarry added: ‘Such a high number of people have consultations for vision correction or to check their general eye health and are surprised to realise they have cataracts. The symptoms can be gradual, and so sometimes it is only when people are treated that they realise how cloudy or blurred their vision had become. Yet one in three of us is likely to develop cataracts so we are calling on people to really be aware of the symptoms and to have their eyes checked regularly.’
Optegra’s study found 30 per cent did not realise cataracts could cause cloudy vision and half did not know blurred vision is a symptom.
Only a third of patients realised cataracts caused poor vision when looking at bright lights, while 17 per cent were able to identify double vision as a symptom, but 12 per cent of British adults did not know any of the symptoms of cataracts.