THE CATARACT PATIENT’S GUIDE

SUBJECTS:

What Is Cataract? The cataract is a physiological dulling of the eye natural lens called Crystalline. Crystalline is lodged between cornea and retina behind the pupil. Crystalline allows to focus the world around us modifying its thickness according to the distance from the objects that we are looking, like the lens of a camera. When it becomes opaque, the images can no longer be clearly sent to the retina. There are many false beliefs about this pathology: cataract cannot be "contaminated" from an eye to the other one; it is not produced because of a "wider use of sight"; it does not arise in a "few months", but it takes many years for developing; it is not a "cancer" and above all we cannot become "blind" because of a cataract.

Causes and symptoms

There are different kinds of cataract caused by several different reasons, and we can be affected by it at whatever age. The most common cause is the physiological aging of the proteins constituting the crystalline (SENILE CATARACT), a phenomena which could be compared to the hair graying or to the loss of muscular tone.
Concerning that we remember that six persons older than sixty out of ten are suffering from cataract.
Other less frequent causes are:

Symptoms of the cataract can also be found related to the following conditions: inability for reading smaller font types such as the phone books or the drugs labels, difficult sight when standing at underlighted sites, nightly dazzling due to the headlights of the crossing cars. Another symptom of the cataract, opposed to the above mentioned ones and usually well accepted by the patient, is the leave-taking of reading glasses. In fact, sometimes the cataract process allows reading of the smaller fonts without the aid of lens but, contemporarily, produces a loss of distance sight.

What Is To Be Done?

If you suspect to be suffering from a cataract, the first thing to do is to undergo a specialist’s visit during which the crystalline transparency will be assessed by means of an instrument called BIOMICROSCOPE. Besides that, it is very important to check ocular pressure and ocular bottom, preferably when the pupil is enlarged: if the cataract is the only trouble limiting the eye functions, you have excellent chances of recovering a full visual capability.
Sometimes on the contrary, if the specialist is suspecting the presence of other pathologies that could affect the final result, or when the cataract is at an advanced stage (WHITE CATARACT), a deeper patient’s analysis would be needed through more suphisticated equipment such as ecography (evaluation of the retina positioning), the FLUORANGIOGRAPHY (analysis of the retina vascular circulation) or the PEV and ERG ELECTROFUNCTIONAL ANALYSES (evaluation of the optic nerve and retina functions).

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Cataract Treatment

The cataract treatment is basically surgical. The treatment by drops or more recently by pills for preventing the formation of free radicals are not pharmacologically assumed as certain and most of times they are prescribed as an attempt in order to delay the cataract process when it is in the initial stage. Another very important concept to clarify is that it is no more necessary to wait that cataract becomes extremely "mature" before operating it. The truth is the contrary. In fact, the cataract can be removed whenever the patient wants, thanks to the most advanced technologies.

When the cataract produces such a reduction of the sight capability that affects the patient’s work, hobbies and way of life, it is probably time to remove it.

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