Ocular Senile Changes

It is a blessed day today, the weekend has been quite blissful and I am happy because I got a much-needed rest. I believe I am ready for the week ahead and even more, I am ready to celebrate valentine's day even with loved ones and my patients, hehe.

But how was your weekend, I do hope you had a great time like I did and I hope that you are ready for the upcoming week. Today we have an interesting discussion at hand and I am optimistic that you would enjoy the read as well as learn something from what we have to share today.

Growing or aging is an inevitable process that we all have to go through so long as we continue to live. Unfortunately growing old also means that we have to live with its effect which could be quite disturbing sometimes. Aging comes with increased free radicals in our system, reduced antioxidants, our body cells dying and we losing energy with time.

Our ability to do certain things decline, our immunity decline and we become more susceptible to health conditions and attacks from microbes, etc. Our eyes also tend to suffer from the effects of aging, if not for anything we can all attest to the general knowledge of our sight declining as we grow older. An eye care provider would be able to tell you the specific causes of each individual but generally yes, our eyesight decline with age.

For some people, it may be due to age-related macular degeneration, for others the development of cataracts, and presbyopia comes into play, loss of nerve fibers and a whole lot of other factors may come into play. An individual may have one or more of these coming together to bring about their decline in vision. And so for today, we want to take a look at some of these causes of vision decline with aging, what you should expect, and some healthy habits which may be of benefit to us all.

Let's begin with the most prevalent and most common condition of aging when it comes to the eye, cataracts. The crystalline lens of the eye has a special excretion system where lens fibers pile up on each other instead been taken off completely like what happens with our skin cells as they shed away.

And so as we grow older it gets thicker and the lens loses its transparency and its integrity as we age. This could sometimes result in a myopic shift depending on the type of cataract which could sometimes be good for geriatrics because it makes presbyopia more tolerable and sometimes these individuals do not need glasses to read. So cataract is something that could come up as we age.

Then there is an increase in aqueous production in the eye which intraocular increase intraocular pressure. Naturally, we tend to lose some amount of our retinal nerve fibers every year as we grow older and when our intraocular pressure goes up we tend to lose them quicker than usual. And so if you happen to be a glaucoma patient things may escalate with age. And so most advanced glaucoma conditions are found in the aged.

This is also one of the reasons why low vision is mostly seen among the aged. Presbyopia, I believe we have spoken about it recently and so I would skip on that and talk about age-related macular degeneration where the macular losses its integrity to an extent affecting your direct vision. Maculopathies are also quite common with aging as well as retinopathies where the integrity of the cells is compromised.

One of the common systemic conditions associated with aging currently too happens to be hypertension and diabetes and these tend to have adverse effects on the eyes as we age. Vision weakens and blood vessels weaken, sometimes they burst or leak and all hell breaks loose. The last issue I would talk about is tear production with the eye. One of the most common aging issues has to do with tear production.

As we grow older our tear gland's ability to produce aqueous declines and so dry eye condition is a prevalent condition among the aged now. Geriatrics on a regular would need ocular lubrication lest they suffer from burning sensations and excessive tearing as the eye tries to make up for the deficit.

Growing up means there are some of these conditions you have to psych yourself about and be ready to face. But then having a healthy lifestyle which includes regular exercises, healthy eating, visiting your primary physician regularly, and avoiding smoking and other unhealthy habits could do you a lot of good and even keep some of these issues from coming up.

And so make the effort for the benefit of your eyes and for your future, live healthily, and take care of yourself, when in doubt always consult a professional and do well to avoid over-the-counter medication without a proper or thorough eye examination. It was a pleasure coming your way today and I wish you a blissful week.