There’s no such thing as too old for LASIK, but there is an age range for the best results (25 to 40). That’s because people over 40 are likely experiencing or about to experience presbyopia, which is the age-related hardening of the eye’s natural lens. People under 25 may still have fluctuating vision as their eyes mature. Your eye lens works like a camera lens, adjusting the focus to see objects clearly, whether far away or up close. That flexibility wanes with age, and the lens can’t accommodate the change in distance for near vision anymore. Presbyopia is why most adults need reading glasses or readers in their 40s.
LASIK focuses on refractive errors from an abnormally shaped cornea, but presbyopia is an issue with the natural lens inside the eye (behind the pigmented iris). Laser eye surgery can correct vision problems from nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism but won’t improve blurry near vision caused by presbyopia.
People with presbyopia who are interested in vision correction may qualify for clear lens extraction, which can correct for presbyopia and other refractive errors by replacing the natural eye lens with an artificial intraocular implant.