June is Cataract Awareness Month! According to Prevent Blindness, by 2032, 38.5 million Americans will suffer from cataracts.
What Is Cataract?
Prevent Blindness states that, “Cataract is a clouding of the eye’s lens which blocks or changes the passage of light into the eye.” Cataracts affect women more than men, along with Hispanics and Caucasians the most at threat for developing cataracts.
Types of Cataracts:
According to Prevent Blindness, the types of cataracts are:
- Age-Related: 95 percent of cataracts are age-related, usually after age 40.
- Congenital: These are present at birth, usually caused by infection or inflammation during pregnancy; possibly inherited.
- Traumatic: Lens damage from a hard blow, cut, puncture, intense heat or chemical burn may cause cataracts.
- Secondary: Some medicines, eye disease, eye infection, or diseases such as diabetes cause these cataracts.
- Radiation: Cataracts can develop after exposure to some types of radiation.
Prevention and Treatment:
Prevention is key for preventing vision loss. Eye doctors can provide you with a complete dilated eye exam that could help prevent eye diseases. If you are looking for treatment when suffering from cataracts, there are successful ways to repair one’s vision. With a 95 percent success rate, Cataract surgery is one of the most successful ways to repair vision loss that is due to cataracts.
June is an important month for Cataract Awareness! Use the hashtag, #CataractAwarenessMonth, to spread awareness!
Source:
Cataract Awareness Month | Prevent Blindness. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.preventblindness.org/cataract-awareness-month-0.