Accommodative Insufficiency in Prepresbyopic Diabetic Patients

Diabetes mellitus is a clinical syndrome characterized by a defect in the glucose metabolism due to the decrease in the secretion of insulin or due to insulin resistance. The complications of diabetes mellitus in the eyes include many manifestations and one among them is the reduction of accommodative amplitude. People with diabetes have accelerated age-related biometric ocular changes compared with people without diabetes. This purpose of this study is to compare the accommodative amplitude in prepresbyopic diabetic patients with age related healthy individuals. The study was a case control hospital based study carried out in the Department of Ophthalmology, Saveetha Medical College. The subjects in the study included 50 diabetic patients of age 30 to 40 (Case) and 50 non diabetic patients of the same age (control). The accommodative amplitude was measured by minus lens method. People who have had diabetic retinopathy, previous ocular surgeries and systemic diseases which have more ocular manifestations were excluded. The mean amplitude of accommodation is seen to be lower in diabetic patients when compared with the normal population and it was found to be statically significant. The incidence of accommodation insufficiency was also found to be higher in diabetic patients and was found to be statistically significant. Thus according to the findings there is a direct influence of diabetes on accommodative amplitude i. e, there is a decrease in accommodative amplitude in diabetic patients when compared with normal patients.