Types of Ophthalmic Lenses

Visual impairments can really impact the quality of life for any person.

Those individuals who suffer from visual impairments have a somewhat different view of life, which is quite literal in many severe cases. Thankfully, modern science and technology has helped us solve these problems through ophthalmic lenses.

What Is an Ophthalmic Lens?

An ophthalmic lens is a focal lens made to correct visual impairments in those who have issues with their focal point incorrectly hitting light on their retinas. These visual impairments cause the focal point to hit light either in front of the retina, or behind it, resulting in near or farsightedness.

Ophthalmic lenses can correct these visual impairments and can even correct astigmatism, which is the deformation of the cornea that results in eyestrain and headaches due to blurry vision, similar to the mentioned visual impairments.

The types of ophthalmic lenses can be divided into three categories, relating to solving these three visual impairments.

Types of Ophthalmic Lenses

There are numerous ways that a lens can be grinded to create shapes and, typically, three shapes are commonly used in ophthalmic lenses to correct the mentioned visual impairments. These include:

· Convex

These ophthalmic lenses are curved outwards, giving a rounded shape to the lens. The round nature of this lens helps to bring the user's immediate surroundings into focus and capture the details that would otherwise be blurred due to farsightedness.

Patients that suffer from farsightedness cannot correctly focus on objects close to them because the entering light creates a focal point behind their retina. Convex ophthalmic lenses help correct this issue by bringing the focal point on the retina and allowing nearer objects to be seen clearly.

· Concave

Concave ophthalmic lenses, as the name suggests, are caved inwards, creating a rounded cave-like shape on the lens. This concave shape helps bring farther objects into perspective for those patients who suffer from nearsightedness.

Nearsightedness in patients brings the focal point of light entering their eyes in front of their retinas, which makes it difficult for them to see objects that are far away. The inward shape of concave ophthalmic lenses can correct this issue by moving the focal point back on the retina.

· Cylindrical

Cylindrical ophthalmic lenses are shaped like a cylinder to help correct focal points for patients who suffer from astigmatism. Patients suffering from astigmatism have an astigmatic cornea, which is deformed and has mismatched curves unlike normal corneas.

It cannot correctly project the light to bring the focal point on the retina, instead, the deformed cornea projects the light at different focal points, causing blurry vision at all distances. A cylindrical ophthalmic lens helps compensate for this by counteracting the uneven curvatures of astigmatic corneas.

Conclusion

Whether a patient suffers from nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism, the right type of ophthalmic lens can help correct their visual impairment. This is especially true for correcting blurry vision caused by astigmatic corneas, whose sufferers are at the most disadvantage.

There are also other variants of ophthalmic lenses that are differentiated by their focalizations and coatings. You can read all about them by clicking here (please link blog titled ' Different Focal and Coating Options for Ophthalmic Lenses'.

If you want to learn more about the types of ophthalmic lenses and what they do, or you want to get the best ophthalmic lenses for yourself or your business, please visit our website today.