Presbyopia plagues daily life claims new research

A hard-hitting report on the state of European sight, claiming many people’s daily lives are impaired by an ignorance of presbyopia, aims to attract national newspaper headlines later this month.

It reveals that opportunities across the continent to sell eyewear to the over-40s could be more attractive than currently thought, with many in the UK and elsewhere still unaware of the vision correction options available.

In a rare pan-European study of people’s attitudes to eye care and vision, researchers have found a substantial need by patients not only for products to improve their sight, but for professional advice and care.

Discussion on the growth of the ageing population is well known, but the ensuing health difficulties have been less documented.

According to the Sight over forty report, a lack of awareness of the build-up of sight problems has led to huge numbers unable to do the simplest tasks, such as women applying make-up and men shaving, the research will state.

More worrying, it claims that four out of five of those aged over 40 struggle to read important text on medicine containers and food labels. 

The report sampled over 1,400 people aged over 40 from seven wealthy European countries, including the UK, and found that many had difficulty doing important financial tasks, such as signing credit card receipts, leaving the poorly sighted open to fraud.

Even everyday tasks such as writing cheques, reading mobile phone messages or checking the time proved difficult to a significant proportion of the sample.

Industrialists should be concerned too  the report examined the impact of presbyopia on work productivity and found 16 per cent of respondents admitted the condition slowed them down at the office or factory, with a further 13 per cent revealing that they found work more stressful as a result of the problem.