The contactology department offers personalized advice and adaptation of contact lenses through a prior ophthalmological examination, specific diagnostic tests, and the evaluation of each patient’s needs.
The joint work between the optometrist and the ophthalmologist allows us to offer prevention or early treatment regarding complications derived from the use of contact lenses.
The contactology department of the Institut de la Màcula offers different types of adaptation:
• Continuous-wear lenses as an alternative to the usual correction of myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism.
• Lenses to correct presbyopia.
• Simulations during the preoperative stage of cataract and refractive surgery.
• Therapeutic use or as an aid to pharmacological treatments.
What are refractive errors?
Ocular refractive errors are myopia, hyperopia, and/or astigmatism. The myopic eye has a longer length than normal, so images of distant objects are focused in a plane located in front of the retina. Hyperopia is the opposite defect of myopia: the eye is shorter than normal, so images of distant objects are focused in a plane located behind the retina. Astigmatisms are defects that depend on the regularity (sphericity) of the optical surfaces, especially the cornea.
Presbyopia is not strictly a refractive error but the result of the loss of accommodation, which is the ability to change ocular focus to see nearby objects clearly. We all progressively lose the ability to accommodate with age, due to the natural decrease in elasticity of the crystalline lens and the surrounding tissues, and other related physiological changes.
Contact lenses temporarily correct these refractive errors when they appear alone or combined. They are also used therapeutically.
CONTACT LENSES
Contact lenses are very small and thin lenses that are applied directly onto the cornea, whether to correct refractive errors, for cosmetic purposes, or for therapeutic use.
In most cases, the prescription of contact lenses is associated with the correction of refractive errors.
Contact lenses provide a wider visual field and sharper vision in some prescriptions that are difficult to correct with glasses.