Female Speaker: Maureen Gibbons from Long Island New York is an amateur photographer. Trouble with her hobby offered the first clue she had cataracts. Maureen Gibbons: I love to take pictures, and especially of my grandchildren. I like to use the manual on the camera and when I would do that I couldn't focus. I realized I had the right setting, my eyes were not telling me so. Female Speaker: During middle age, most cataracts are small and don't typically affect vision. But it's after the age 60 that most cataracts can begin to steal away our sight. Male Speaker: Cataracts have a very profound impact on patients' quality of life. Losing vision is probably one of the most scary things that can happen to a patient. Female Speaker: Researchers don't know why cataracts develop, but they do know they develops slowly over time. For Maureen Gibbons, photography with he granddaughter Devin was only one of several activities affected. Maureen Gibbons: Everything that I had enjoyed were becoming less and less; the reading, the computer, my photography. I was really very, very upset. Dr. Richard Mackool: Probably that most people who have cataracts are unaware of how much their vision is being affected. It sneaks up on you just like wrinkles. When did you get them? Nobody knows when they got wrinkles, but there they are. The same thing with your vision and cataracts. Dr. Kerry D. Solomon: While it's true that if you live long enough you'll get cataracts, the time to remove a cataract varies from person to person. It varies by how much the vision is limiting your day-to-day activities and then it also varies by how much of the visual limitation can be corrected with glasses and contact lenses; because the earliest treatment for cataracts is glasses or contacts. Female Speaker: The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends a comprehensive eye exam every two to four years for patients ages 60-64, or every year or two for those over 65. An exam can help in catching age-related vision problems like macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts. When cataracts are discovered early initial remedies like glasses or contact lens may be prescribed; when those are no longer effective, surgery is usually the next step. Male Speaker: The best way I describe a cataract is to think about a grape, because that's really the lens of our eye. During surgery we remove the front skin of the grape called the anterior capsule; we then use an ultrasonic device to break-up the cataract so that it can be removed through a very small incision through that ultrasonic device. But we leave the membrane called the capsular bag or in our analogy the skin of the grape intact. Then we were replace the cataract or the lens of the eye that's become cloudy and hard with a new lens that's clear in that very same membrane. Dr. Eric D. Donnenfeld: The good news is that with modern cataract surgery almost always patients will benefit from cataract surgery and will see a lot better than they did before they came in for their cataract surgery. Maureen Gibbons: My sight today is 20/20 and I am so pleased. I don't use any reading glasses, I don't need any enhancements, I don't need any magnifying glasses, I can read the telephone book. That's a challenge.