This physiological condition traditionally has required the use of reading glasses with plus lenses or bifocals in order to read. Presbyopia causes the near point, the closest point from your eyes at which you can see objects distinctly, to recede as we grow older. Farsighted individuals, who can see better at distance than at near without glasses, find that the loss of accommodation becomes apparent at even a younger age. This is because a farsighted person has to accommodate to see clearly at a distance. Farsighted individuals have a greater demand or need for accommodation.
Nearsighted individuals can see better at near than at distance without glasses.
These individuals can often wait longer before they need reading glasses. This is because the eye is normally in focus at near. However if a nearsighted person wears glasses or contacts to correct their vision at distance then they will notice the loss of accommodation or presbyopia and often it begins for these individuals in their mid 40 s. Individuals who were nearsighted but underwent a refractive vision correction procedure will find their accommodative requirements would be the same as individuals who never wore glasses, because the eye has already been corrected for distance and the nearsighted eliminated. For over a 150 years the progressive decrease in accommodation with aging was thought to be a loss of lens flexibility often referred to as lens sclerosis.