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Presbyopia: a pilot investigation of the barriers and benefits of near visual acuity correction among a rural Filipino population
BACKGROUND: Presbyopia is the age-related decline in accommodation that diminishes the ability of the eye to focus on near objects. Presbyopia is common and easy to correct; however, many communities lack access to basic eye care. The purpose of this project was to assess the burden of uncorrected p...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3908502/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24467667 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2415-14-9 |
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author | Wubben, Thomas J Guerrero, Christopher M Salum, Marlo Wolfe, Gregory S Giovannelli, Gerald P Ramsey, David J |
author_facet | Wubben, Thomas J Guerrero, Christopher M Salum, Marlo Wolfe, Gregory S Giovannelli, Gerald P Ramsey, David J |
author_sort | Wubben, Thomas J |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Presbyopia is the age-related decline in accommodation that diminishes the ability of the eye to focus on near objects. Presbyopia is common and easy to correct; however, many communities lack access to basic eye care. The purpose of this project was to assess the burden of uncorrected presbyopia in a rural Filipino population and to pilot an intervention aimed at increasing access to reading glasses in the community. METHODS: Individuals above the age of 40 who presented to a health outreach in the Philippines were invited to undergo a near vision exam to detect the presence of functional presbyopia and be fitted with ready-made, single-vision glasses. The change in stereoacuity was used as a surrogate measure of functional improvement after near vision correction. A questionnaire was administered to assess this population’s perceived barriers and benefits to correcting near vision. RESULTS: The average age of the participants was 57 ± 11 years, with 87.6% of participants having an uncorrected near visual acuity of <20/50. Reading glasses improved near vision to 20/40 or better in 77.7% of participants having near-vision impairment (uncorrected near visual acuity of <20/40). Over 75% of participants also showed improvement in stereoacuity. Cost, rather than availability, was perceived to be the greater barrier to the procurement of glasses, and 84% of participants reported that the glasses dispensed would greatly improve their ability to earn a living. CONCLUSIONS: Dispensing ready-made, single-vision glasses is a simple and cost-effective intervention to improve near vision and enhance depth perception. A greater understanding of the barriers and benefits to correcting near vision will inform the design and execution of a sustainable program to correct presbyopia in developing countries. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3908502 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-39085022014-02-01 Presbyopia: a pilot investigation of the barriers and benefits of near visual acuity correction among a rural Filipino population Wubben, Thomas J Guerrero, Christopher M Salum, Marlo Wolfe, Gregory S Giovannelli, Gerald P Ramsey, David J BMC Ophthalmol Research Article BACKGROUND: Presbyopia is the age-related decline in accommodation that diminishes the ability of the eye to focus on near objects. Presbyopia is common and easy to correct; however, many communities lack access to basic eye care. The purpose of this project was to assess the burden of uncorrected presbyopia in a rural Filipino population and to pilot an intervention aimed at increasing access to reading glasses in the community. METHODS: Individuals above the age of 40 who presented to a health outreach in the Philippines were invited to undergo a near vision exam to detect the presence of functional presbyopia and be fitted with ready-made, single-vision glasses. The change in stereoacuity was used as a surrogate measure of functional improvement after near vision correction. A questionnaire was administered to assess this population’s perceived barriers and benefits to correcting near vision. RESULTS: The average age of the participants was 57 ± 11 years, with 87.6% of participants having an uncorrected near visual acuity of <20/50. Reading glasses improved near vision to 20/40 or better in 77.7% of participants having near-vision impairment (uncorrected near visual acuity of <20/40). Over 75% of participants also showed improvement in stereoacuity. Cost, rather than availability, was perceived to be the greater barrier to the procurement of glasses, and 84% of participants reported that the glasses dispensed would greatly improve their ability to earn a living. CONCLUSIONS: Dispensing ready-made, single-vision glasses is a simple and cost-effective intervention to improve near vision and enhance depth perception. A greater understanding of the barriers and benefits to correcting near vision will inform the design and execution of a sustainable program to correct presbyopia in developing countries. BioMed Central 2014-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3908502/ /pubmed/24467667 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2415-14-9 Text en Copyright © 2014 Wubben et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Wubben, Thomas J Guerrero, Christopher M Salum, Marlo Wolfe, Gregory S Giovannelli, Gerald P Ramsey, David J Presbyopia: a pilot investigation of the barriers and benefits of near visual acuity correction among a rural Filipino population |
title | Presbyopia: a pilot investigation of the barriers and benefits of near visual acuity correction among a rural Filipino population |
title_full | Presbyopia: a pilot investigation of the barriers and benefits of near visual acuity correction among a rural Filipino population |
title_fullStr | Presbyopia: a pilot investigation of the barriers and benefits of near visual acuity correction among a rural Filipino population |
title_full_unstemmed | Presbyopia: a pilot investigation of the barriers and benefits of near visual acuity correction among a rural Filipino population |
title_short | Presbyopia: a pilot investigation of the barriers and benefits of near visual acuity correction among a rural Filipino population |
title_sort | presbyopia: a pilot investigation of the barriers and benefits of near visual acuity correction among a rural filipino population |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3908502/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24467667 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2415-14-9 |
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