Lens Implant Salt Lake City - Dr. Phil Hoopes, Jr.

Dr. Hoopes, Jr. talks about lens implant procedures at our Salt Lake City office on ABC 4.

FEMALE VOICE: All right, Baby Boomers, if you are sick of your reading glasses, get really close to the television right now, because this segment is for you. We are talking about new lens implant technologies that can really help. Dr. Phillip Hoopes, Jr. is here from Hoopes Vision. That’s in San—how are you? DR. PHILLIP HOOPES, JR.: Good to see you again. FEMALE VOICE: Good to see you. DR. HOOPES: Thanks for having me. FEMALE VOICE: I’ve definitely visited you before. DR. HOOPES: Yeah? FEMALE VOICE: I was there for LASIK. DR. HOOPES: Yes. FEMALE VOICE: It’s been a year now. But we’re talking about something a little bit different today. DR. HOOPES: Yes. LASIK’s very popular. Everybody knows about it. And it’s a surgery truly geared towards the 20, 30, and 40 year olds. But once you’re beyond mid 40s, 50s, and 60s, where the big Baby Boomer population that we have now, LASIK doesn’t quite fill in all the gaps. You can get good distance, but people still struggle with their reading. And so, we want to let people know that there’s more available now than just LASIK to correct vision. FEMALE VOICE: Okay, so somebody like me who’s in my 40s, and I have—I’m needing the bifocals a little for reading the labels in the kitchen, what exactly can you do? DR. HOOPES: Well, LASIK is still a very popular choice. FEMALE VOICE: Okay. DR. HOOPES: And so, many 40 year olds and even into your 50s that we see are still going to pick LASIK. FEMALE VOICE: Uh-huh. DR. HOOPES: The limitations of LASIK are you can have one eye see far. You can have one eye see near once you’re in your 40s— FEMALE VOICE: Okay. DR. HOOPES: --but you can’t have both in the same eye. FEMALE VOICE: Okay. DR. HOOPES: So now where we’re going with technology is actually away from the surface of the eye like lasers, and to the inside of the eye— FEMALE VOICE: So that’s where those lens implants go? DR. HOOPES: Yeah. We’ve been putting lens implants in people’s eyes for over 30 years. This is not new. It’s not science fiction, but the lens implants now do incredible things to simulate human vision. FEMALE VOICE: Okay, this is what they look like. DR. HOOPES: Well, up for the past— FEMALE VOICE: In a much bigger sense, right? DR. HOOPES: You were worried that this really goes in the eye. FEMALE VOICE: Are you putting this in your eye? DR. HOOPES: For 30 years, these are the type of implants that have been placed during cataract surgery. And they’re single distance implants. They see distance very well, but most people having cataract surgery still needed to go out and get bifocals. FEMALE VOICE: Okay. DR. HOOPES: But over the past three or four years, several companies have come out with modifications. This one’s kind of hard to see. They put rings in the center. FEMALE VOICE: So what do those rings do? DR. HOOPES: Well, they split. One ring is for distance. One ring is for reading. And they split out like ripples in a pond. And they kind of blend your vision. FEMALE VOICE: Okay. DR. HOOPES: So a person now can look across the room and see distance, yet also look down the paperwork and see what they’re doing. FEMALE VOICE: And like people who would do a lot of computer work, that’s probably a pretty good thing, because you’re looking off at the distance at something, but then you’re needing to look up here. DR. HOOPES: Yeah. About 92 percent of people which get these lenses, and this model’s called Restore, never wear glasses again. FEMALE VOICE: Oh, wow. DR. HOOPES: Here’s one that’s really neat. This takes the best of the single vision, but they put it on hinges. So as it goes inside the eye, we use our eye muscles and it rocks back when we’re driving, rocks forward when we’re reading. And it almost gives as close to human focusing as they’ve done so far. So— FEMALE VOICE: That’s amazing. DR. HOOPES: --we’re going a long way. And so if you know people who’ve had cataracts, and wanted more out of cataract surgery than getting bifocals, there’s now that option. FEMALE VOICE: How does the surgery work? DR. HOOPES: Well, we do it exactly like cataract surgery. We make a small incision on the eye where the white and the clear join. It’s done with eye drop anesthesia, no shots, no needles. The surgery takes less than 10 minutes to do. And people leave the office without even wearing a patch, similar to our LASIK patients. FEMALE VOICE: 92 percent don’t ever have to wear glasses again? DR. HOOPES: Uh-huh. FEMALE VOICE: I mean, that’s— MAUREEN: That’s amazing. FEMALE VOICE: I can’t tell you my last year has been like a new life without wearing my glasses, Maureen. MAUREEN: And you didn’t have any problems at all. FEMALE VOICE: It’s amazing. So it’s so wonderful. Again, I had LASIK done. MAUREEN: Yeah. FEMALE VOICE: And you can talk to Dr. Hoopes about that or this. All you need to do is contact them. They are in Sandy. I like to tell people it’s right by Target because then you know what I’m talking about. Hoopes Vision, there’s their number right there on our screen. We’ll also put it on our website. And we can link you to their website. Go to abc4.com and then click on “Good Things Utah.” Dr. Hoopes, thank you. DR. HOOPES: Thanks for having me. FEMALE VOICE: So much. DR. HOOPES: Appreciate it. MAUREEN: Good to see you. And I love the fact that there’s a lot of different options out there, especially for people who are— DR. HOOPES: It’s not lasers anymore. MAUREEN: --in their 40s and over. Okay, coming up—