LouisB
July 21, 2008, 6:01am
21
cromulent:
A driving test is most likely a distance test.
It’s great that your step MIL is still able to read uncorrected, but it’s 99.9% likely that, rather than accommodating to see up close, what’s happening is one of the following possibilities:
She uses reading glasses.
She’s a low myope who trades slightly blurry distance vision for the ability to see more clearly up close, uncorrected (the 20/20 distance vision makes this unlikely)
In my opinion, the most interesting possibility – she has natural monovision. If she has perfect distance vision in one eye and is, say, a -2 D myope in the other, she may simply suppress her “good” eye for near vision, and her “bad” eye for distance vision. Plenty of people who want to stay in contacts after becoming presbyopic arrange for a similar set-up with their eye doctor, but it’s possible to have this occur naturally (called myopic anisometropia, if you’re curious. That’s just a fancy way to say that this person is a myope who requires a different prescription in each eye.)
At any rate, everything I’ve read/heard/seen in clinic dealing with presbyopia points to its inevitability. Sorry to be depressing. I’m only 26 and frankly love the ability to accommodate and would be happy to learn that there’s a chance that I’ll retain it, but all signs point to that not happening.
She does not use reading glasses and she does not wear contact lenses. So far as I can tell, she is an old lady who has been gifted with exceptional eyesight.