Which Daily Disposable Multifocal Contact Lenses Perform Best
Which multifocal daily disposable contact lenses for presbyopia work best?
What are Multifocal Contact Lenses for Prespyopia?
People with presbyopia need vision corretion at near and at a distance. They need help focusing at different distances, which is why lenses for presbyopic patients are called multifocal lenses. What are the best contact lenses for people with presbyopia? Daily disposables is the answer. They offer the best results for comfort, health and safety. However, there are a variety of daily disposables on the market. In this post, we compare their performance.
What are multifocal contact lenses?
Multifocal lenses treat presbyopia. Presbyopia is a condition that most people get around 40 years of age and it results in the need for reading glasses. Some presbyopic people require vision correction for both reading and distance vision. If they wear eye-glasses, the will have multifocal lenses inserted into the frames - these are called progressive lenses. Multifocal contact lenses are like the progressive lenses of the contact lens world. They are multifocal in that they have multiple focus points: they focus both at near for reading vision and at far for distance vision.
Has there been a scientific study on daily disposable lens performance?
Yes, there has. A 2018 study published in the journal Optometry and Vision Science entitled Visual Performance of Daily-disposable Multifocal Soft Contact Lenses: a Randomized, Double Blind, Clinical Trial. The study compared the performance of the following daily disposable multifocal contacts:
- 1-Day Acuvue Moist Multifocal,
- BioTrue ONEday for Presbyopia, and
- Dailies AquaComfort Plus Multifocal
How good is BioTrue ONE day for Presbyopia?
The study found that BioTrue ONEday for Presbyopia was better at distance vision than near vision. It performed better at distance vision that 1-Day Acuvue Moist Multifocal.
But 1-Day Acuvue Moist Multifocal was better tat near vision than BioTrue ONEday for Presbyopia. In fact, of the three tested brands, BioTrue was rated lowest in near vision clarity, near vision ghosting and near vision clarity.
How good is 1-Day Acuvue Moist Multifocal?
1-Day Acuvue Moist Multifocal did well in near vision but it rated worst of the three tested brands on distance clarity, distance ghosting and driving vision. With respect to stereovision, or 3D vision and depth perception, 1-Day Acuvue Moist Multifocal did better than BioTrue.
How good is AquaComfort Plus Multifocal
Dailies AquaComfort Plus Multifocal did reasonably well at both distance and near vision.
Which are the best Multifocal contacts for you?
The answer depends on your lifestyle and activities. If you do a lot of driving, you should avoid 1-Day Acuvue Moist Multifocal because of its poor distance vision performance. However, if you do a lot of near work, especially work where depth perception is important, you might do better with BioTrue. For reasonable performance at distance and near, Aquacomfort is a good bet.
Keep in mind that the study we looked at for this blog post only compared three brands of multifocal contact lenses. Others are available. Your doctor's clinical experience in evaluating patient satisfaction and eye health with a wide range of contact lenses is a critical wealth of knowledge that you need when choosing a contact lens. In addition, the study did not evaluate the impact of the brands on the health of the surface of the eye or comfort and eye dryness. These are important factors in choosing your contacts and you should talk to your optometrist about them.