Causes Of Eyesight Failure

Eyesight Failure is a natural part of aging. Damage to the eyes can also result from over exposure to the sun, bright lights, computer over-use and chemicals.

Causes of Eyesight Failure

Presbyopia

Presbyopia is a normal deterioration of vision, with no other direct cause.

Cataracts

Cataracts develop from a variety of reasons, including:

• long-term ultraviolet exposure
• exposure to radiation
• secondary effects of diseases such as diabetes
• advanced age
• genetic factors are often a cause of congenital cataracts - predisposing someone to cataracts at an earlier age

Cataracts may also be produced by eye injury or physical trauma.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness in the world. In the United States, age-related lenticular changes have been reported in:

• 42% of those between the ages of 52 to 64
• 60% of those between the ages 65 and 74, and
• 91% of those between the ages of 75 and 85

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is disease of the optic nerve involving loss of retinal ganglion cells in a characteristic pattern of optic neuropathy. This may be due to unstable blood flow.

Raised intraocular pressure is a significant risk factor for developing glaucoma, there is no set threshold for intraocular pressure that causes glaucoma.

One person may develop nerve damage at a relatively low pressure, while another person may have high eye pressure for years and yet never develop damage.

Untreated glaucoma leads to permanent damage of the optic nerve and resultant visual field loss, which can progress to blindness.

Glaucoma affects one in two hundred people aged fifty and younger and one in ten over the age of eighty.

• People with a family history of glaucoma have about a six percent chance of developing glaucoma.
• Diabetics and African-American people are three times more likely to develop primary open angle glaucoma.
  

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