Researchers conducted this research to investigate normative patterns and factors associated with presbyopia progression in a multiethnic Asian population.
Malay, Indian and Chinese participants who had baseline and 6-year follow-up examinations with subjective refraction data were recruited from the Singapore Epidemiology of Eye Diseases Study.
The researchers included 2608 eyes for final analysis after excluding eyes with a history of cataract surgery and best-corrected distance visual acuity worse than 20/40. Overall the mean near addition power change over six years was +0.25 D; Malays showed a more significant difference than Indians and Chinese. After adjusting for baseline age, gender, body mass index, hypertension, cataract, refractive error, and daily hours of reading and writing, Malays were more likely to have presbyopia progression compared with Chinese and Indians Individuals were aged 60–69 years and ≥70 years were less likely to progress in presbyopia compared with those aged 40–49.
The study concluded that in this Asian population, the relative addition power change over six years was lower than the current near addition prescription guidelines.
Reference: https://bjo.bmj.com/content/104/11/1591
