If you are over the age of 40 years old you may have noticed that your reading vision is not as clear as it used to be. This natural loss of reading vision with age is called presbyopia and happens as a result of the hardening of the eye’s own natural crystalline lens.
For those people who have always had perfect vision throughout their life, they will start to need glasses for reading. If you are one of the unlucky ones who has worn glasses prior to developing presbyopia, you will now need to wear either varifocals, bifocals or 2 separate pairs of glasses.
Laser eye surgery can now treat presbyopia and there are various methods that are now available to you. Monovision is the most commonly used procedure and aims to correct one eye for distance vision and the other eye for near vision. You can read more about how laser eye surgery can correct near vision by clicking this link.
If you have been deemed unsuitable for laser eye surgery then there will be no option but to consider the non-laser alternatives. Refractive lens exchange is likely to be your best solution and the Lentis M Plus lens is now being used in this procedure. During refractive lens exchange, your own natural lens is replaced by an artificial lens of which there are various types. The Lentis M plus lens is one of the latest developments in intraocular lens implants (artificial lens) and it can be used to correct distance, intermediate and near vision, which is what is required if you are over the age of 45 years old. Read our detailed refractive lens exchange guide for more information.
You can think of the Lentis M plus as similar to that of the varifocal spectacle lens, whereby different zones of the lens relate to distance, intermediate and reading vision. These multifocal lens implants have been around for a number of years but the quality of the vision has generally not been satisfactory. The main problem with previous multifocal lenses has been with the number of aberrations that they produce. The most common of these visual aberrations are glare, starbursts and haloes around lights, which are especially noticeable in low light levels. The Lentis M plus lens has the following advantages:

• You will get good distance, intermediate and reading vision.
• The lens performs well in all lighting conditions. Often multifocal lens implants do not perform well in low light conditions.
• The lens has reduced glare and haloes which are associated with other multifocal implants.
• The lens produces good vision regardless of your pupil size. Other multi-focal lenses do not perform as well on people with large pupils.
• The Lentis M plus has been shown to offer excellent contrast sensitivity which is effectively the ability to recognise details in both light and dark conditions.

The Lentis M plus lens can also be used on people who have cataracts which is something that is common in people over the age of 60 years old. Normally following cataract surgery people will need glasses for reading vision as the lens implant that is used only corrects distance vision. If following cataract extraction however the Lentis M plus lens is used, then this gives people the potential to have both distance and near vision.