Accommodating Intraocular Lens Bellows for Stable Fluid-Driven Focus
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing intraocular lenses (IOLs) fail to adequately mimic the natural lens's accommodation ability, leading to less than ideal vision correction, particularly for near and intermediate distances, and often cause glare and halos, with some models being too large for the incision and unstable post-implantation.
Innovation Solution
An accommodating intraocular lens (AIOL) design featuring an inner fluid reservoir and outer fluid reservoir with a bellows region, allowing fluid transfer between chambers to adjust optical power in response to eye accommodation, using compliant folds and protrusions to maintain stability and reduce incision size.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If prior accommodating IOLs are designed to provide accommodation, then optical power change is achieved, but the lens size becomes larger than ideal for incision and stability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The IOL is divided into multiple functional segments: an optical lens portion and a haptic portion with bellows structures. This segmentation allows the lens to change shape for accommodation while the haptics maintain stability in the capsular bag, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The haptic portion incorporates bellows structures with folds that can compress and expand. These flexible thin-walled structures allow the IOL to adapt its shape for accommodation while maintaining overall structural integrity and stability post-implantation, addressing both adaptability and reliability requirements.
2Adaptability or versatility
If prior multi-focal IOLs are used to address vision at multiple distances, then reading and distance vision improve, but significant glare, halos, and visual artifacts occur
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of static multi-focal zones that cause visual artifacts, this IOL uses dynamic accommodation where the lens changes shape in response to capsular bag pressure changes. This dynamic adjustment provides multi-distance vision without the harmful optical interference characteristic of static multi-focal designs.
Solution Approach 2:
The IOL utilizes the eye's natural accommodation mechanism through capsular bag pressure changes to automatically adjust focus. This self-service approach eliminates the need for complex multi-focal optical zones that generate glare and halos, providing artifact-free multi-distance vision.
3Adaptability or versatility
If prior AIOLs are designed to provide accommodation, then optical power changes occur, but the amount of accommodation decreases after implantation
Solution Approach 1:
The IOL creates a feedback loop where capsular bag pressure changes during natural eye accommodation directly control lens shape. This physiological feedback mechanism ensures long-term maintenance of accommodation amplitude by continuously responding to the eye's accommodative demands rather than providing a fixed, degrading mechanical response.
Solution Approach 2:
The IOL leverages the eye's own accommodation mechanism to maintain accommodation amplitude over time. By using capsular bag pressure as the actuating force, the device benefits from the eye's continuous physiological regulation, preventing the degradation seen in mechanically-driven prior designs.
4Manufacturing precision
If prior AIOLs are made larger to provide sufficient optical power, then refractive correction improves, but the incision size must be larger than ideal
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible haptic structures with bellows folds allow the IOL to be compressed to a smaller delivery profile for minimally invasive incision while expanding to full functional size post-implantation. This resolves the contradiction between requiring sufficient optical power (larger lens) and minimizing incision size.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The AIOL provides improved accommodation, refractive stability, and reduces visual artifacts, allowing for seamless focus adjustments from far to near vision while maintaining a smaller incision size and enhanced stability.
Implementation Method 1
The bellows region allows fluid to transfer between the inner fluid chamber and the outer fluid reservoir to provide optical power changes when the eye accommodates
Implementation Method 2
A complaint fold region of the bellows region can allow the profile of the inner region of the AIOL to deflect when the eye accommodates for near vision
Data Source
AI summary
An accommodating intraocular lens (AIOL) for implantation within a capsular bag of a patient's eye comprises first and second components coupled together to define an inner fluid chamber and an outer fluid reservoir. The inner region of the AIOL provides optical power with one or more of the shaped fluid within the inner fluid chamber or the shape of the first or second components. The fluid reservoir comprises a bellows region with one or more folds of the bellows extending circumferentially around an optical axis of the eye. The bellows engages the lens capsule, and a compliant fold region between the inner and outer bellows portions allows the profile of the AIOL to deflect when the eye accommodates for near vision. Fluid transfers between the inner fluid chamber and the outer fluid reservoir to provide optical power changes when the eye accommodates.