Clinical stages of cataract development:
- Immature cataract
- Not completely opaque
- Some light is transmitted through them, allowing useful vision
- Mature cataract
- Are completely opaque
- Vision is significantly reduced
3. Intumescent cataract-
- The lens absorbs water and increases in the size
4. Hyper mature cataract
- The lens proteins break down into short chain polypeptides & that leak out through the lens capsule
- The pieces of protein are engulfed by macrophage, which may obstruct the trabecular meshwork causing phacolytic glaucoma.
- A hyper-mature cataract in which the lens nucleus floats freely in the capsular bag is called a Morgagnian cataract.
Clinical manifestations
- Painless, blurry vision is characteristic of cataracts (The patient perceives that surroundings are dimmer as if glasses need cleaning)
- Reduced contrast sensitivity
- Sensitivity to glare
- Reduced visual acuity
- Myopic shift
- Astigmatism
- Monocular diplopia (i.e., double vision)
- Color shift (i.e., the aging lens becomes progressively more absorbent at the blue end of the spectrum)
- Brunescens (i.e., color values shift to yellow-brown)
- Reduced light transmission.
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