What is hyperopia?

Commonly called farsightedness, an error of refraction that initially causes difficulty in seeing near objects and then affects distance vision. Hyperopia tends to run in families.

Hyperopia is caused by the eye being too short from front to back or the cornea being too flat, so that images are not clearly focused on the retina. Mild or moderate hyperopia in the young is overcome by accommodation (the action of the ciliary muscles to change the shape of the lens), which brings the point of focus forward to produce a clear image.

The error may be present from early childhood, but symptoms generally do not appear until later life. The more severe the hyperopia, the lower the age at which the problem appears. People with hyperopia experience varying degrees of difficulty viewing close objects because the power of accommodation declines with age. In time, distance objects are also blurred. Hyperopia may lead to eyestrain. Neither blurred images nor eyestrain permanently affects vision.

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