I’ve already told you about the implantable telescopic lens for people suffering from advanced age-related macular degeneration, but now, I bring you more crazy crap you can stick in your eye.
From ReVision Optics in Lake Forest, California, comes the Vue+, a microlens designed to treat presbyopia, which is the loss of near-vision focus, typically after 40. You may not be worried about it now, but never fear—it’s coming for you. Presbyopia affects everyone as they age.
According to the company, the Vue+ is “a corneal inlay that is designed to improve near and intermediate vision by microscopically changing the shape of the eye’s surface.” It’s a seriously tiny transparent lens (2 mm: thinner than a human hair and as small as a pinhead), has a volume roughly equal to 1/500th of a water droplet, and is inserted just beneath the surface of the eye. Which means you won’t feel this thing at all, nor can it be scratched, lost, or broken, if that’s what you’re worried about. It won’t even move once it’s implanted, yet it’s also surgically removable.
ReVision has currently finished the first part of its clinical trials, and is now observing the 400 patients from those studies over the next three years. Earlier trials have reported positive results, so hopefully the good news will keep rolling in.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but this feels to me like the start of something grand. Think of it: we’ve already got laser eye surgery and now with these developments in ocular implants and vision correction… maybe a future in which we won’t ever have to worry about vision problems begins here. Just a zap or an implant away, and your eyesight will always be perfect. For someone who’s been wearing glasses almost all his life, I can tell you, the idea sure sounds sweet.
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