Cataracts remain the most common cause of blindness worldwide. It is also one of the most common ENT surgeries carried out in Ireland.

Having cataracts is often compared to looking through a foggy windshield of a car or through the dirty lens of a camera. Cataracts may cause a variety of complaints and visual changes, including blurred vision, difficulty with glare (often with bright sun or automobile headlights while driving at night), dulled colour vision, increased near sightedness accompanied by frequent changes in eyeglass prescription, and occasionally double vision in one eye.

Cataracts linked to the aging process, however there are many factors that may lead to development of cataracts at an earlier age. Some of these factors include excessive ultraviolet-light exposure, diabetes, smoking, or the use of certain medications, such as oral, topical, or inhaled steroids.
Unfortunately there is no real prevention for cataracts but it is important for older groups to have regular eye examinations.

There are three basic techniques for cataract surgery:

Phacoemulsification is the most common form of cataract removal. This type of cataract surgery can usually be performed in less than 30 minutes and usually requires only minimal sedation and numbing drops, no stitches to close the wound, and no eye patch after surgery.

Extracapsular cataract surgery is used mainly for very advanced cataracts where the lens is too dense to dissolve into fragments (phacoemulsify) or in facilities that do not have phacoemulsification technology. This technique requires a larger incision so that the cataract can be removed in one piece without being fragmented inside the eye. An artificial lens is placed in the same capsular bag as with the phacoemulsification technique. This surgical technique requires a various number of sutures to close the larger wound, and visual recovery is often slower. Extracapsular cataract extraction usually requires an injection of numbing medication around the eye and an eye patch after surgery.

Intracapsular cataract surgery requires an even larger wound than extracapsular surgery, and the surgeon removes the entire lens and the surrounding capsule together. This technique requires the intraocular lens to be placed in a different location, in front of the iris. This method is rarely used today but can be still be useful in cases of significant trauma.

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