Design and experimental evaluation of a rotationally symmetric zonal aspheric lens for early presbyopia correction

Progressive addition lenses (PALs) are inherently associated with peripheral astigmatism arising from their progressive optical architecture. We developed a rotationally symmetric zonal aspheric lens (ZAL) as an alternative approach for early presbyopia correction. The ZAL was designed using an eye model adapted to the participant's refractive prescription, fabricated, and experimentally characterized. Compared with a commercial PAL, the ZAL reproduced the intended power distribution and exhibited reduced peripheral astigmatism. A preliminary 14-day binocular wear evaluation was conducted in a single participant. Visual acuity and recognition accuracy were comparable between the ZALs and PALs, whereas median reaction time was longer with the ZALs (956.94 vs. 907.47 ms, p < 0.001). These findings demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed optical architecture and indicate that reduced peripheral astigmatism does not necessarily translate into faster functional visual responses under the present testing conditions.