Twenty years of NZOVRF-supported scientific inquiry.

For many years, Alan Bott travelled from his optometric practice in Paeroa to supervise the contact lens laboratories and clinics at The University of Auckland. He was one of the founders of the New Zealand Optometric Vision Research Foundation (NZOVRF) working closely with Eugene Hirst and Dr Leon Garner (now Professor Emeritus Garner) to raise nearly $500,000 for the Foundation from 1985 to 1988. Alan passed away in 1999 as a result of prostate cancer.

Is there a hyperopic shift in myopic eyes during the presbyopic years?

BACKGROUND: Studies of age-related changes in myopia during the presbyopic years have produced contradictory results. Some studies have shown that myopic eyes undergo a hyperopic shift after the age of 40 or 45 years, whereas others have provided evidence for a myopic shift. In this paper, we report the results of both a cross-sectional study and a retrospective longitudinal study of age-related changes in refraction during the presbyopic years.