Refractive Lens Implants
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Glossary of Terms

Accommodation – is the ability to quickly change focus to see objects at distances up-close, far away and everything in between. Presbyopia usually becomes significant in a person's mid-forties.

Apodization –The gradual reduction or blending of the diffractive step heights. The application of apodization to intraocular lenses is a patented process by Alcon and can only be found in the AcrySofR ReSTOR
IOL.

Cataract – A "clouding" of the lens in your eye. As light passes through the cataractous lens, it is diffused or scattered. The result is blurred or defocused vision.

Crystalline lens – The eye's natural lens. Transparent, biconvex intraocular tissue that helps bring rays of light to a focus on the retina.

Intraocular lens (IOL) – An artificial lens that replaces the eye's clouded.

Monofocal IOL – An artificial lens that provides patients with only one focal point, most commonly distance, thus leaving patients dependent on glasses for near activities. Currently, this is the most commonly implanted artificial lens.

Presbyopia – Condition in which there is a diminished power of accommodation arising from loss of elasticity of the crystalline lens, as occurs with aging.