“Accommodation (a’komuh’day”shun), n. In ophthalmology, adjustment of the eye to variations in distance; the changes in the ciliary muscle and lens whereby the focus of light rays on the retina is maintained.” Gould Medical Dictionary
The Accommodation Club
Founded 1989 is an international group of researchers who have a common goal to understand and restore accommodation.
The Accommodation Club provides an important forum for discussion of the latest developments in the field, in order to stimulate further work and advance scientific understanding.
The Challenge
Presbyopia results in reduced accommodation. Near vision loss is a direct consequence. Accommodation may also be lost after removal of the crystalline lens, for example with cataract surgery.
Presbyopia affects almost everyone over the age of 40. There are currently nearly 2 billion presbyopes and this number is growing rapidly, with the world’s population aging at an extraordinary rate (life expectancy has increased 4 years per decade over the last 100 years, from 40 to 80 in many developed countries).
The current best-practice correction for presbyopia are reading, bifocal, or multifocal spectacles, or less successfully, contact lenses. For cataract, the best-practice treatment is cataract extraction and intra-ocular lens (IOL) implantation. These conventional approaches suffer from many shortcomings causing vision problems including limited range of near focus, low contrast, glare, haloes, optical distortion and aberrations, limited field of view and ghosting.
Currently, a number of groups and independent scientists, clinical practitioners and engineers around the world are actively pursuing solutions for the optimum treatment of cataract and restoration of accommodation to the presbyope.
The Accommodation Club provides a forum for these developers to discuss and foster research into understanding accommodation and presbyopia, and the development of new systems to restore accommodative function. Our goal is to provide normal vision at all distances to the enormous number of presbyopic and cataract patients around the world.