The contact lenses worn at night that mean you'll no longer need reading glasses

• Contacts work by lightly pressing around the eye to revive it towards the form of someone with normal vision
• Worn during the night so vision is remedied throughout your day
• Already used for those who are short-sighted, however also appropriate for age-related sight loss

By Anna Hodgekiss

Released: 09:13 GMT, 4 April 2013

A contact worn each evening could remove the requirement for reading through glasses in mid-life.

The strategy - which experts liken to braces for that teeth - alters the form from the eye to fix vision, without requiring glasses or surgery.

The contacts work by lightly pressing around the eye to revive it towards the form of someone with normal vision.

The overnight contacts work by lightly pressing around the eye to revive it towards the form of someone with normal vision

Since they're worn while sleeping, the individual no more needs their vision remedied throughout your day with reading through glasses.

And since the contacts aren't worn within the day, your eyes get sufficient oxygen.

Most middle-aged people experience some age-related loss of near vision, referred to as presbyopia. More...

• Cholesterol-busting eye drops could combat the key type of blindness the aged
• Grandfather, 71, left blind in a single eye after optician, a GP and THREE hospitals unsuccessful to identify curable disease

Typical signs and symptoms include needing to hold a menu even further away to obtain the text in focus - and lots of people require bifocals or reading through glasses.

However the new technique Known as hyperopic orthokeratology - provides an alternative, based on Dr Paul Gifford of Australia's College of Nsw.

ORTHOKERATOLOGY

Like a technique, orthokeratology has been around for hundreds of years. It's thought china rested with small weights or sandbags on their own eyelids to lessen short-sightedness.

But until lately,' states Dr Susan Blakeney, optometric agent towards the College of Opticians, 'it continues to be considered hard to rely on, as there is no ensure the contacts works.

'Since then, techniques for example cornael topography - in which the curve from the cornea is measured - allow us. What this means is contacts can be created to suit the bend of every person's eye very precisely.'

Presbyopia is triggered by age-related lack of versatility within the cornea-the transparent front part that allows light in to the eye.

Dr Gifford and the friend Dr Helen Swarbick analyzed a 'monocular' technique, with patients putting on a custom-made lens in a single eye overnight for just one week.

To preserve normal distance vision, another eye remained without treatment.

In most patients, the orthokeratology technique was effective in rebuilding near vision within the treated eye.

The advance was apparent around the first next day of overnight lens put on, and elevated further throughout the therapy week.

Eye examination confirmed the contacts changed the form from the cornea, because they specified for to complete.

Vision within the without treatment eye was untouched, and all sorts of patients maintained normal distance for the reason that eye.

The re-shaping is temporary, however, since the cornea will progressively spring to its original shape, therefore the contacts should be worn every evening.

To support the correction in near vision, patients needed to continue putting on their contacts every evening.

To support the correction in near vision, patients must put on the contacts every evening

Dr Anthony Adams, editor of Optometry and Vision Science, compared this ongoing treatment towards the 'retainer' that orthodontic patients need to put on nightly.

He stated: 'The authors have proven the feasibility of fixing one eye for near vision through orthokeratology, by which overnight contact put on shapes the cornea of 1 eye to permit in-focus near vision for reading through.

'This study shows that orthokeratology is very viable like a nonsurgical choice for monovision that doesn't require putting on contact contacts throughout your day, even though it does require 'retainer' orthokeratology contact contacts to become worn overnight.

'This possibility will definitely attract lots of people, especially because the alterations in the cornael curvature from the treated eye are fully reversible.'