What is monovision laser eye surgery for presbyopia?

One option for people 40 to 60 years old with presbyopia (a loss in the eye's focusing ability) but otherwise healthy eyes is surgical correction to produce monovision, in which one eye is corrected for close-up vision, leaving the other for distance vision. This approach doesn't fix the stiffened lenses that are the underlying cause of presbyopia, but it can eliminate the need for bifocals or multiple sets of glasses, and it may even enable you to read without glasses.

Doctors use various procedures to make the correction. Laser surgery techniques include laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK), photorefractive keratectomy (PRK), and laser thermal keratoplasty (LTK), each of which reshapes the cornea or the area around it to provide correction. (The technique used depends on your particular circumstances.) If you choose laser surgery and never had focusing problems until presbyopia developed, the surgeon will correct one eye so you can see up close, leaving the other eye with your natural ability to see far. If you're both myopic and presbyopic, the doctor can correct your nondominant eye for near vision and your dominant eye for distance. It may take several surgeries to get the desired result, and the results may not be lasting.

Another technique used for monovision is conductive keratoplasty (CK). This method is similar to laser surgery but doesn't actually use a laser. Instead, CK uses short bursts of radio waves to shrink and reshape the cornea. One limitation is that it can take a few months before the full benefits are apparent. CK may also carry a slight risk of causing astigmatism.