Much has been written and said about progressive powered lenses. Today there are many different designs available from many different manufacturers. The choice is such, that many progressive lens wearers are starting to get confused. “What type of lens is the right one for me?” “Are they not all just the same anyway?” “Or are they just trying to sell me the most expensive one?”

Unfortunately, deciding on the best progressive lens design for a client is not a matter of making a decission based on price. Too many other factors have to be considered. Even the coice of frame has something to do with it. Most progressive lens wearers find the distance and reading areas of their lenses as sufficient.

For many the biggest restriction is in the comfort zone, for intermediate distances. Anyone working on a computer screen, which is usually positioned somewhere in an itermediate distance between 50cm and 150cm, will have experienced this limitation to a certain degree.

So what determines the size of the Comfort Zone?

• Firstly the width of this zone is determined by the lens type – the more modern the technology and the more the lens can be individually designed for a wearers prescription and anatomy, the wider and more comfortable these areas become.
• Secondly the actual prescription of the wearer, in particular the difference between the reading and the distance prescription (typically noted as the “ADD”) – the higher the “ADD”, the narrower the comfort zone.
• Thirdly the length of the progressive corridor (the area where the lens changes from distance to the full reading power). The shorter the corridor, the narrower the comfort zone.

So what does all that mean for you as a wearer? Well, if you heavily rely on a large and wide comfort zone (intermediate area) in your progressive powered lenses, it would be advisable to choose an individually designed lens type, to keep the additional power required for reading (the “ADD”) to an absolute minimum and to choose a frame that allows the corridor (the part of the lens where the change from distance to near power takes place) to be as long as possible.

Whatever you do, individual and personalised professional advice is essential to get the maximum benefit from your progressive powered lenses.

Cheap “budget” progressives will not lead to the desired result.