Cataract

Seeing everything more blurred and cloudy: everyone who gets older has to deal with it. The clear and transparent lens of the eye is located at the front of the eye, just behind the pupil. As we age, this lens becomes less clear. This makes the things we see appear blurrier and grayer in color. This clouding of the lens of the eye is called ‘cataract’. In addition to age-related cataracts, there are other forms of cataracts:

• congenital cataract
• Cataracts are caused (or accelerated) by diseases or injuries to the eye

Ouderdomsstaar

Age-related cataracts usually develop very slowly and are a normal aging process. Some people notice that their vision is decreasing as early as the age of forty, but the symptoms of age-related cataracts usually only appear later. Whether one notices it depends on where in the eye lens the cloudiness develops and how large and how severe the cloudiness is. If the cloudiness is in the center of the lens or close to it, you will quickly develop complaints. Cataracts often occur in both eyes at the same time. Initially, a small part of the lens is affected. Often you don’t notice this. Very gradually, vision becomes increasingly blurred, especially with distance vision.

In addition, there are also a number of other symptoms that can occur with age-related cataracts:

• blurred vision
• changing the prescription of your glasses annually
• double vision
• night blindness
• sensitivity to light
• colors become duller

It may happen that you can temporarily read better without glasses, while this was not possible before. This ‘better vision’ is gradually lost again as the clouding of the lens increases. If you suddenly need much stronger or weaker glasses or lenses within a short period of time, this may also indicate cataracts. Other glasses can no longer improve your vision in the long run. Buying glasses again and again is expensive and the cataract usually only increases over time. Your vision therefore becomes increasingly worse. A visit to the ophthalmologist is therefore necessary.

Anyone who still sees well enough to be able to perform daily activities, hobbies and tasks such as driving without problems does not need to be treated. An operation is then not really necessary. However, it is realistic to take cataract surgery into account in the future. After all, cataracts never improve; vision slowly but surely deteriorates. Once incipient cataracts have been discovered, monitoring is necessary if the symptoms worsen. As soon as the cataract becomes too bothersome, your vision can be improved with cataract surgery. When this should be done can be determined in consultation with the ophthalmologist.

Diagnosis

To find out whether there is indeed a senile cataract, the ophthalmologist examines the eyes with a slit lamp. Using a narrow beam of light and magnification, the ophthalmologist can get a good look at the front part of the eye. The ophthalmologist can see whether there are clouds in the lens of the eye and, if so, how far the cataract has already developed. The ophthalmologist also examines the condition of the eyesight and whether the eyes are otherwise healthy.

Treatment

Cataracts due to age are easy to treat. Cataract surgery can restore vision almost completely, if the rest of the eye is healthy. The surgery is usually performed as a day surgery under local anesthetic drops and sometimes by injection. During the surgery, the ophthalmologist removes the cloudy lens from the eye and replaces it with a clear, plastic implant lens. This lens will in principle last the rest of the patient’s life.

In principle, the ophthalmologist operates on one eye per operation. If you wish and it is responsible, you can be helped in both eyes at the same time. In that case, this results in a much faster, more functional and more social recovery. You only need to make approximately half the number of visits.

Cataract surgery is perhaps the most commonly performed surgery in the world. The operation is still easy to undergo, even at a very old age. By the way, surgery is the only way to do something about senile cataracts. There are no medications for cataracts. Cataracts cannot be removed by laser. In order to remove the own cloudy lens and to be able to insert the new artificial lens, surgery is still required inside the eye: the own cloudy lens is surgically removed and then replaced by a plastic lens.

After the patient has had the anesthetic drops for 15 minutes, the surgery is started. An operation on an eye takes about 10 minutes.

Afterwards, the patient can go home. After about 4 weeks, the final check-up is done, during which the result is measured and which prescription glasses apply for far away and/or for near.
Dr. Stolwijk is very experienced in this and has performed about 25,000 cataract operations to date, partly in the Lievensberg hospital in Bergen op Zoom (1998-2013) and partly in Stolmed Eye Clinics in Bergen op Zoom/Etten Leur (2014-2024).

Special Artificial Lenses
In many cases, it is possible to place a special artificial lens during cataract surgery, which means that in almost all cases patients no longer need glasses to see clearly. There are separate costs involved in ordering and placing this lens. Dr. Stolwijk has been placing these lenses for about 15 years and over 90% of these patients are very satisfied with the special lens they have chosen.

Aftercataracts

After cataract surgery, there is a high chance that secondary cataracts can occur again. The last membrane of the lens itself can become cloudy. This causes vision to deteriorate again and colours to become somewhat duller. This clouding can occur after a few months to years.

Treatment

This membrane can be removed with a short laser treatment. After some anesthetic drops have been administered, a glass is placed against the eye. The cloudy membrane can then be lasered away relatively easily through the glass.
After the treatment, there may be (temporary) cloudy streaks in the eye that are experienced as floaters. In general, any complaints about this will decrease over time.