WVU Medicine offers high-quality care for cataracts, other vision issues

“It’s primarily an issue of aging,” Moore said. “Our hair gets gray, our joints get stiff, and our natural lens in our eye turns cloudy. It presents as diminished vision, such as not seeing things on the television quite as clearly or needing better light to read. There are also frequent glare symptoms, like cars at night all seem to have their high beams on.”

While the condition is primarily age-driven, Moore said that smoking, being out in the sun a lot, and taking certain medications like steroids tend to cause cataracts to appear at an earlier age.

Moore explained that most modern cataract surgery involves removing the clouded lens in the eye and replacing it with an intraocular lens, or IOL.

“It’s exceedingly rare that someone would not get a lens implant at the time of surgery,” Moore said. “Decades ago, patients had to wear those really thick glasses that people wore after cataract surgeries. The glasses were heavy and expensive and not great, so the implant is really a big advance.”

Moore added that most of these lenses are “monofocal,” meaning that patients with the implants can either see far away or near and will need glasses to see otherwise. While these are the lenses covered by most insurances, he noted that multifocal lenses are also available, giving patients the ability to see fully without glasses after surgery.

The surgery itself, he said, is quick and simple.

“The actual surgery only takes 10 or 15 minutes to do, but the patient is at the hospital for a few hours so we can get the eye ready and watch them for a little while afterwards,” Moore said. “They have some eye drops to take for a few weeks and have a couple of follow-up visits after their surgery.”

Moore said that he alone performs roughly 15 cataract surgeries every week, with his colleagues also performing a similar number of operations. He added that while cataract surgeries are done all over the state, country, and world, WVU Medicine provides it at a higher level.

“We have the full spectrum of specialists,” Moore said. “We have specialists for glaucoma and corneas and retinas. If somebody’s cataract surgery is complicated or not routine … you couldn’t be at a better place than WVU Medicine because we have all of the specialties covered, and we have a lot of experienced people here. If you want to feel like you’re in the best hands in the region, we do an excellent job.”