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A new generation of contact lenses, improved surgery and other optical therapies and advances are bringing fresh hope for older eyes, says JANE SYMONS

and other damage to the macular, a tiny area in the retina which is vital to see detail and colour.

But there is hope – here we look at some of the latest advances in surgery and other optical therapies and techniques that aim to preserve or restore vision. Tiny implants are being used to restore the sight of patients with late- stage AMD. A telescope the size of a pea is inserted into one eye where it acts like a telephoto lens. The CentraSight device projects an image, enlarged by a factor of three, on to the healthy outer part of the retina and this fills in the central blind spot created by AMD.

In effect this creates two different eyes – one with the implant which provides central vision and the untreated eye which delivers peripheral sight – and following surgery the patient has to retrain their brain to merge the two sets of visual information.

The procedure is available privately at a number of centres in the UK and the Harley Street Eye Clinic has just become the first unit in the world to offer the procedure to patients who have already had surgery to remove cataracts.

Previously these patients have been ruled out but ophthalmic surgeon Mr Ahmed El- Amir says: “We determine whether the synthetic lens for cataract surgery can be extracted safely and if there is enough support to balance the implant. We do this without carrying out a surgical procedure.”

The technology comes with a hefty price tag as the procedure costs around £ 15,000. Scientists are also working on a more responsive implant which can zoom in and out at the wink of an eye. The prototype, which was unveiled at the American Association for the Advancement of Science last month, is used with glasses which control the zoom and can tell the difference between a wink and regular blinking.

Dr Eric Tremblay from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne in Switzerland, who was involved in the research, says: “We think these lenses hold a lot of promise.” There is no cure for AMD but two studies by the National Eye Institute in America have shown that specific vitamins and antioxidants can reduce the risk of getting it.

The first Age- Related Eye Disease Study followed 3,600 people with varying degrees of AMD and found that a combination of vitamins A in the form of beta- carotene, C and E, coupled with zinc and copper, stalled progression of the disease and cut odds of developing AMD by a quarter.

However after evidence emerged that high doses of beta- carotene accelerate lung cancer in smokers, a second ARED trial was carried out which confirmed that lutein and zeaxanthin are a safe and effective