Ever heard of the term presbyopia? I certainly hadn’t. But apparently only about 10% of us – in the age group who are likely to have it – have actually ever heard of it. I’m sorry if we’re the bearer of bad news here, but if you’ve been wondering if restaurants have started intentionally making their menus harder to read (or WHY people keep insisting on making the text on their instagram stories impossible to read?!? Although, even WITH glasses I think this might actually be a thing people do!? Is it?! WHY!?) – you may already have it. The bad news is, we’re all going to get presbyopia – likely in our early 40s – but there is plenty we can do about it!
Welcome to The One Thing! Every week we’re bringing you the one nugget of info that you need to know or didn’t know you needed to know! Whether it’s a tip to make your life a little easier, a pearl of wisdom, something to make you think, or maybe something to make you laugh, The One Thing is here to serve you every Friday!
If you’ve got a suggestion or submission for The One Thing – maybe something about the industry you work in that you think others should know! – please send your thoughts to alice@capsulenz.com. We’d love to hear from you!
It’d been a while since I’d seen a group of old school friends, and here we were, sitting around a table together, about to order a meal.
Except, one thing, was making this rather difficult: the menu was not particularly easy to read.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to be having trouble. One of my friends started holding the menu up by the candlelight to get a better look. Another one – to our horror – got out her phone torchlight to start reading.
“Ha, good to know it’s not us,” said one of my friends. “This menu is obviously just impossible to read!”
Only, it wasn’t impossible to read – the group of twenty-somethings next to us were having no trouble at all reading the menu. And, gulp, nor were the couple in their 60s next to us who were both wearing glasses.
And sure enough, when I fished my glasses out of my bag, I had no trouble reading it – so ended up reading the whole thing aloud for everyone to make their picks.
I’d never heard the term before, but it appears that all of my friends who are around my age – early 40s – all have it:
Presbyopia.
Apparently, it’s one thing that is going to happen to all of us at some stage – I’m sorry.
I spoke to Arshad Hoosen – a Specsavers optometrist – who confirmed that yes, it sounded very likely that presbyopia is upon us. So… what is it?
“Basically, it’s an age-related condition that will affect everyone as they get older,” says Arshad. “Around 40 is the time we see it, with people coming in or presenting with issues, but it can happen in the mid to late 30s. It really depends how intensive the ‘near-work’ (like computer screens) demands have been for jobs or studying in the past – as well as the actual lens in the eye. The internal lens actually becomes a bit thicker and less flexible, so what happens is the ability for it to focus – very much like a camera lens – gets reduced as we age.”
That can show up as trouble reading things like your phone – or a menu, or book – as well as driving.
Arshad says obviously, that’s one of the most critical times to have good eyesight, but it can be the biggest test of presbyopia, particularly night-driving.
“What makes it so difficult is that the dashboard, the GPS and maps are all in front of us, quite close, but then of course we’re readjusting back to looking longer distance, at road signs, at traffic ahead – and then back to our dashboard,” he says. “That’s where it can really start to compromise our safety.”
A recent Specsavers study surveyed Kiwis aged 35-50 and found that a staggering 90% of respondents had never heard of presbyopia (despite the majority of them likely having it?!). It found that many of the respondents were most likely suffering from the effects of it, with more than a quarter saying they choose the set menu when dining out to avoid reading and deciding on something for themselves. And 18% said they’d misread the time of an appointment and missed it as a result.
Arshad says some other signs that you (or someone you know and love) might have presbyopia are things like: holding something at arm’s length to read it, upping the size of things on your phone, screenshotting something then zooming in to read it or turning the flashlight on your phone on to read something.
“I’ve seen patients take photos of things at the supermarket, or take photos of their medication bottles so they can zoom in to read the instructions,” he says. “Smart phones are a good and a bad thing, in that they are helping people to be able to read things more easily, but they can be masking the problem.”
And, a lot of us let pride get in the way and solider on with our less-than-functioning eye sight. Sometimes we can get away with it – Arshad gives the example of a patients who would just ask the waiter in the restaurant to recommend their best dish, or ask their partner to order for them when they couldn’t see the menu.
But, the fact is, not getting presbyopia checked out by a professional, can lead to some situations with pretty terrible consequences.
“I’ve had patients who have booked appointments after they have read the wrong numbers, who have put the wrong numbers into tax returns,” says Arshad.
And then there’s the people who end up in trouble on our roads. According to Waka Kotahi NZTA, one in 14 drivers have a vision defect that may affect their driving.
In 2023 ‘driver diverted attention’ (which includes vision issues, or focusing on something other than the road) was a factor in 15 fatal crashes, 98 serious injury crashes and 796 minor injury crashes in NZ.
“An eye test is 30 minutes on your lunch break,” says Arshad. Your insurance, AA membership or workplace scheme may even cover the cost. It’s a small investment in the short term though in making sure you can see the stuff that matters.