Cylindrical lens is used by a person suffering from

Cylindrical lenses are specifically used to correct astigmatism, a refractive defect caused by the irregular or nonspherical curvature of the cornea or the crystalline lens [t1][t6]. In astigmatism, light rays focus at multiple points instead of a single point on the retina, leading to blurred or distorted vision at all distances [t4][t5]. Cylindrical lenses compensate for this by having different curvatures in different directions, allowing light to focus correctly [t4][t8]. In contrast, myopia (short-sightedness) and hypermetropia (far-sightedness) are typically corrected using spherical lenses—concave for myopia and convex for hypermetropia [c1][t6]. Presbyopia, which involves the loss of accommodation due to aging, is often corrected with convex or bifocal lenses [c3][t1]. Therefore, the presence of a 'cylinder' value in an eye prescription specifically indicates the correction required for astigmatism [t7][t8].

Sources

1. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1705958/
2. [2] Science , class X (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 10: The Human Eye and the Colourful World > What you have learnt > p. 170
3. [3] Science , class X (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 10: The Human Eye and the Colourful World > Figure 10.3 > p. 164