Financial Assistance Information
Developing a cataract
is one of those unfortunate things that befall most of us as we age. Between
the ages of 52 and 64, you have a 50% chance of having a cataract, but you probably
won't experience any problems with
your vision until about 65. By 75, just about everyone has a cataract; and 50%
of the people between 75 and 85 have lost some vision as a result.
Many generations have accepted poor vision in later years as an inevitable consequence
of aging. But refinements incataract surgery procedures and technological advances
in lens replacement have changed this assumption dramatically, at least in the
United States, wherecataract surgery is the number one therapeutic surgical
procedure performed on Americans 65 and older. Medicare pays $3.4 billion a
year for 1 million of the 1.3 million cataract procedures performed annually.