Hyperopia is a medical name for farsightedness. Hyperopia is when you lack the ability to see a close object clearly. Note that despite it is known as farsightedness, it affects the object that is nearby not the object that is far from you.
In the sense that the object that I’d far can be seen very clearly. Hyperopia is also known as long sighted. You can only get a normal vision when the light focuses directly on the retina but in farsightedness case, the visual image is focused behind the retina.
Farsightedness can occur when the cornea is a little curved. The cornea helps bend the light Ray’s which helps them to pass freely to the pupil which helps light enter the eye.
That is, the cornea is the eyes protective outer layer. It is advisable for those that have this long sighted to use a convex (outward facing) lens to correct the eyes.
Causes of Hyperopia
- Flat/Curved Cornea: The cornea serves as an obstacle for dirt, germs and other things that can cause damage to the eyes. So, if the cornea is too flat, it can affect your vision because the cornea plays a pertinent function in vision. And this can lead to hyperopia.
- Curved Cornea: This leads to Astigmatism because your cornea or lens is curved on one area than the other.
- When the eyeball is smaller than normal, it can lead to hyperopia is because the light focuses beyond the retina instead of on it.
- Most babies are farsighted at birth.
- A tumour around the eyes can cause hyperopia
- There are some certain medications applied around the eyes, that causes hyperopia. Medications like Antipsychotics, chlorpromazine, clozapine etc.
Some medications like beta-blockers, birth control pills, antihistamine which is taken can also cause eye problems.
- Family History: When the family history has a record of hyperopia, you are likely to have it too, that is, hyperopia can be hereditary.
- Diabetes: This can lead to transient hyperopia. This is a health condition that affects the eye.
- Age: Hyperopia can be effective with people ageing from 70 and above.
- Consumption of alcohol, eye infection can also be a risk factor for hyperopia.
Some risk factors are :
- Obesity and refractive error
- Fatty acids and refractive error
- Diet (high glycaemic diet)
- Trauma
- Ocular disease.
Symptoms
- Eye strain: Straining of eyes include watching of television, reading books. When you put on your glasses even to glance at a book or to watch the television and still feels this symptom … You are advised to visit your doctor.
- Blurry Vision: Once you start feeling that whenever you focus on an object that is nearby and it is not clear unlike before, you are advices to visit your doctor, when reading, writing etc.
- Whenever you try to focus on an object, but you have to squint to see clearly, then you are advices to go for an eye check-up.
- Then when you feel a burning sensation or aches around or in the eyes, there is a tendency that it might be hyperopia (farsightedness).
- Headache: This is a result of straining the eyes. When the eyes are worked up there is tendency of you having / feeling headache.
- Binoculars Vision: This is ability to maintain visual focus on an object with both eyes. So, adult without binocular vision experience distortion on visual measurement of distance.
Complications
There are so many problems attached to hyperopia. That is why you are advised to see the eye doctor whenever you feel any symptoms to avoid further damages to the eye. We all know the eye is a delicate part of the human body.
Some of the complications are.
- Strabismus: Strabismus is the medical term for saying or crossed eye. This is when the eyes focus on different objects. One of the eyes many turn outwards, inward while the other many turn forward. They don’t focus on the same thing at the same time.
- Eye Strain: When the eyes are not corrected, it may cause eye strain (which we discussed above) to maintain focus.
- Amblyopia: This is the medical term for lazy eyes or weak eye. Lazy eyes are when one eye becomes more superior than the other eye. And this lazy eyes occurs in early childhood but can be treated at any age. Though a cross eye can cause lazy eyes, but lazy eyes and crossed eye are not the same condition. Amblyopia can occur as a result of strabismus.
- This hyperopia can reduce life quality when it is not corrected. When you have hyperopia, you might not be able to do some certain things. Hyperopia can cause limitations if not corrected early.
- If there is uncorrected vision problem, there might be a complication that affect your safety. For instance, when driving your vision might be blurry and not see the incoming vehicle. This can cause accident.
- Finances can also be a hindrance of hyperopia being corrected. The cost of eye glasses or contact lens might make you not bother about eye check-ups or even correcting the eyes. The finance problem is seen with people mostly at old age. Wanting to correct the eyes but could not because of financial hindrances. And if it is not corrected on time, it can lead to total vision loss.
Treatments
We should take note that hyperopia cannot be prevented but if you go for eye check-up regularly, it can go detect the eye vision problem on an early stage.
And there are some treatment which you can undergo.
1). Eyeglasses
Eyeglasses can be used to correct hyperopia. This can be done with converging lenses. Eyeglasses correction helps the ability of the eyes to bend do that an image is focused on the retina.
2). Contact Lenses
This is placed directly on the surface area of the eyes. People use contact lenses to avoid using eye glasses.
3). Surgery
Surgery is the final stage to treat an eye. There are different surgeries that can be done to correct farsightedness. This is depending on the prescription by your optician after proper examination.
Diagnosis
Eye examination is the most important way to diagnose farsightedness. This is a test done by an ophthalmologist. The ophthalmologist undergoes a lot of test which includes a refraction assessment.
To detect if the patient have any vision problem be it near-sightedness, astigmatism, presbyopia or farsightedness.
Apart from refraction assessment, there are other are other type types of the eye exams.
- Eye muscle test
- Visual acuity test
- Visual field test (perimetry)
- Colour vision test
- Screening for glaucoma
- Retinal examination
- Slit lamp examination.
Classification of Hyperopia
There are series of ways by which hyperopia can be classified.
1). Structure and Function of the eye
Under this classification we have.
a). Simple hyperopia
b). Pathological hyperopia
c). Functional hyperopia
- The simple hyperopia: This is characterised by the reduction in converging power of lens and cornea. It also exhibits flat cornea and decrease curvature of the lens.
- Pathological hyperopia: This is as a result of trauma or disease of the eye such as cataract and microphthalmia.
- Functional hyperopia: This is characterised by paralysis of accommodation. Accommodation can be defined as the process by which the eye tends to adjust in order to o clearly focus on both distance (far) and near(close) object. It is mostly experienced from birth.
2). Based on degree of refractive error: Under this classification, we have the numerical representation of refractive errors.
This includes.
a). Low/reduced hyperopia
b). Moderate/mild hyperopia
c). High/elevated hyperopia
- Low/reduced hyperopia: This is characterised by numerical refractive error of +2.00D or less.
- Moderate/mild hyperopia: This is characterised by numerical refractive error of +2.20 to 5.00D.
- High/ elevated hyperopia: This is characterised by numerical refractive error of +5.20D and above.
3). Based on Role of accommodation on visual functioning: Under this classification, we have:
a). Facultative hyperopia
b). Absolute hyperopia
C). Total hyperopia
- Facultative hyperopia: This is a kind of hyperopia that can be overcome by accommodation. This means since accommodation focuses clearly on both far and near object, facultative hyperopia with the help of accommodation tend to focus on both the dark and near object.
- Absolute hyperopia: This cannot be overcome by accommodation. Therefore, in absolute hyperopia, only distant (far) object can be clearly focused on. This means hyperopia in this category is usually severe.
- Total hyperopia: This is a summation of combination of both facultative and absolute hyperopia.
4). Base on non- cycloplegic and cycloplegic refractions: This classification has to do with the magnetise of hyperopia and under this we have.
a). Manifest hyperopia
b). Latent hyperopia
- Manifest hyperopia: This deal with non-cycloplegic refraction.
- Latent hyperopia: This is determined by cycloplegic refraction.
Note: The magnitude of hyperopia under this classification, is the combination of manifest and latent hyperopia.
Conclusion
Conclusively, hyperopia (farsightedness or hypermetropia or long-sightedness) is a type of anthropic (disorder of refractive error) which is characterised by the ability to clearly focus on distant(far) object alone.
This means in hyperopic condition, an individual can only clearly see distance(far) object. Whenever this is observed, you should immediately consider available treatment or better still, visit your doctor (ophthalmologist).
If appropriate treatment is not immediately administered or considered, hyperopia can lead to further medical complications such as facultative hyperopia , absolute hyperopia or total blindness.
Therefore, an individual should try as much as possible to ensure or maintain overall healthy state of the eye.
