Senior's Health

It is nor­mal for you to expe­ri­ence changes in your vision through­out your life, and as you age, your risk of devel­op­ing cer­tain eye con­di­tions increas­es as well. For most peo­ple, changes in their eyes begin in their ear­ly to mid-40s and will con­tin­ue into their ear­ly 60s. The most com­mon visu­al change in old­er adults is dif­fi­cul­ty see­ing things close by, pri­mar­i­ly when read­ing or work­ing on a com­put­er. This is a con­di­tion called pres­by­opia, a nor­mal change in your eye­’s abil­i­ty to focus. This hap­pens when the lens of your eye los­es some of its flex­i­bil­i­ty, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for your eyes to shift eas­i­ly from objects far away to objects near­by. Typ­i­cal symp­toms include dif­fi­cul­ty read­ing print mate­ri­als includ­ing books, news­pa­pers or menus, espe­cial­ly in dim light. You may find your­self hold­ing objects away from you in order to see more clear­ly. Once it devel­ops, pres­by­opia will con­tin­ue to progress as you age. Indi­vid­u­als who already wear glass­es or con­tact lens­es may need to switch to bifo­cal or mul­ti­fo­cal lens­es for help with near and far dis­tances. Those who haven’t need­ed con­tacts or glass­es in the past may need to use read­ing glass­es mov­ing forward.

Grow­ing old may be inevitable, how­ev­er, aging well is a choice. Thanks to med­ical advance­ments and increased access to care, the aver­age Amer­i­can is liv­ing to near­ly 80 years old. Tak­ing a proac­tive approach, and estab­lish­ing healthy habits now can help you to feel your best as you enter into your gold­en years. Our Inter­nal Med­i­cine physi­cians, as well as some of their active senior patients, share what you can do now to remain healthy, regard­less of your age.

Essen­tial­ly, there are two fac­tors that can cause issues to the spine as we age. The first is change in the struc­tur­al integri­ty of the bone itself, oth­er­wise known as bone min­er­al den­si­ty. The sec­ond is wear and tear, or degen­er­a­tion, of the var­i­ous motion pro­duc­ing struc­tures of the spine. While there are a vari­ety of spine issues one may expe­ri­ence, these two types of con­di­tions tend to make up the major­i­ty of med­ical issues that bring patients to their doctor.

Cataracts are the lead­ing cause of visu­al loss in adults 55 and over. A cataract is a cloud­ing of the nat­ur­al lens inside your eye. This lens, locat­ed behind the iris, works just like the lens of a cam­era — focus­ing light images on the reti­na, which sends images to the brain. The human lens can become so cloud­ed it pre­vents light and images from reach­ing the reti­na. A cataract can be the rea­son sharp objects become blurred, bright col­ors become dull, or see­ing at night is more dif­fi­cult. It may also be why read­ing glass­es or bifo­cals that used to help you no longer seem to be effective.