What is Cataract?

• Cataract is defined as the opacification of the crystalline lens of the eye.
  In a normal eye, the lens is clear and transparent, allowing light to strike the retina to stimulate impulses for the brain to detect.
• Cataract disrupts this transparency, leading to a decrease in visual clarity.
  It is a major cause of blindness worldwide but is considered “avoidable blindness”because it can be treated through surgery

Clinical presentation

• Symptoms 

1) Poor distant/ near vision
2) Blurred vision
3) Monocular diplopia (in neurological diplopia, if you close one eye, the diplopia disappears.But in monocular diplopia, if you close the unaffected eye, still diplopia will persist)
4) Glare in sunshine or in bright light (while driving)
5) Distortion of lines
6) Altered colours (sees white as yellow)
7) Myopic shift (change of refraction) – sometimes glasses are prescribed telling patients that they will need future cataract surgery
8) Accidental finding (while spectacle prescription/ diabetes retinopathy screening)

• Signs

1) Reduced visual acuity
2) Abnormally dim red reflex
3) A whitish pupil in severe dense cataract case