New help for that bane of middle age: blurry close-up vision

An eye implant that takes about 10 minutes to put in place is the newest in a list of surgical repairs for the blurry close-up vision that is a bane of middle age.

At first you may notice yourself holding restaurant menus at arm’s length.

The usual options are magnifying drugstore reading glasses or, for people with other vision problems, bifocals, multifocal contact lenses or what’s called monovision, correcting for distance vision in one eye and near vision in the other.

[...] while surgery always carries some risk, corneal inlays that are implanted into the eye’s clear front surface are getting attention because they’re removable if necessary.

People have to remember this is not one and done, but requires post-surgical exams and care, said Dr. Deepinder K. Dhaliwal of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a corneal specialist who is watching studies of the inlays.

A gel-like device that looks like a miniature contact lens, the Raindrop is smaller than the eye of a needle.