Driving with Cataracts -- Research Summary

WHAT ARE CATARACTS? A cataract is a painless, progressive clouding of the eye’s natural lens that interferes with light passing through to the retina. About 50 percent of older white adults and 60 percent of older black adults suffer from cataracts. Cataracts are so common, it is said everyone will develop one if they live long enough. Cataracts can take months, even years to develop. Sufferers may have difficulty reading, seeing detail and can be troubled by a bothersome glare or halo around lights. Some with the condition have double vision. Right now, there is no medical treatment to reverse the development of cataracts. Once you have a cataract, surgery is the only option to repair the vision.

SURGERY: During cataract surgery, the ophthalmologist removes the lens from the eye and inserts an intraocular lens. This intraocular lens replaces the real lens and basically clears the vision for the patient. While cataract surgery used to be considered risky and required a lengthy hospital stay, doctors say that has changed. Now, the surgery is an outpatient procedure that only takes minutes to perform and most patients return to their daily routines in one or two days.

CATARACT SURGERY AND DRIVING: A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows an added benefit of cataract surgery. For the study, researchers included a group of older adults who had cataracts that were impairing their vision. Half of the patients elected to have surgery and the other half chose not to have surgery and live with vision impairment. Researchers followed the participants for up to six years. They compared the automobile crash records for the participants and found those who elected to have the surgery had a 50-percent reduction in their rate of crash involvement compared to those who did not have the surgery. Lead study author Cynthia Owsley, Ph.D., from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says, “I think there’s probably quite a few patients that realize that maybe they’re not seeing as well as they used to, but they really don’t understand the magnitude of the impact on their driver safety.” She says this lack of awareness is a public health concern because older adults are driving more miles today than years past.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Owsley recommends that driving safety be one of the factors considered when a doctor is talking to a patient about cataract surgery. She points out the largest group of drivers on the road is older drivers. She says older adults have a higher crash rate per mile driven than most other age groups, and once they’re in a crash, they’re more likely to be severely injured, disabled or die as a result of the accident. Owsley says cataract surgery is one step toward preventing accidents in this age group.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

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