Many of our emerging presbyopes are already accustomed to the comfort of soft contact lenses, switching them to GP multi-focal is far from an ideal solution.

Soft multi-focal contact lenses have been around for a long time, yet the available add power was minimal and the success rate was not at a satisfactory level. Well, those days are over.

Big name contact lens companies like Cooper Vision and Bausch and Lomb have come up with new planned replacement multifocals. These big name manufacturers are only the tip of the iceberg. Unilens, PolyVue, and Blanchard, to name a few, have each created their own successful designs. Varying add powers on many of these lenses allow us to create a truly personalized vision system for our presbyopic patients. There are even successful options for patients with high astigmatism. Westcon and Unilens are just an example of labs that manufacture custom soft toric multi-focals with a high success rate.

As we all know each patient presents a unique case. The most important aspect for any contact lens specialist is to have all these lenses and knowledge of fitting characteristics at their disposal.

Designing a custom vision system for a presbyopic patient takes time and patience on both the practitioner and patients part. As always, patient education and realistic expectations are the most important ingredients for a successful multi-focal fitting.

Steve Cogger is a contact lens specialist from New York City and a fellow of the Contact Lens Society of America. In order to provide a resource for all lens wearers, he is also the webmaster of http://www.All-About-Contact-Lenses.com.