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Potsdam Lions Club uses improved equipment to screen nearly 200 students for vision problems

Posted 6/1/17

POTSDAM -- The Potsdam Lions Club recently screened 182 students for vision problems, using significantly improved equipment to offer accurate eye screening for young children and to alert teachers …

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Potsdam Lions Club uses improved equipment to screen nearly 200 students for vision problems

Posted

POTSDAM -- The Potsdam Lions Club recently screened 182 students for vision problems, using significantly improved equipment to offer accurate eye screening for young children and to alert teachers and parents if any sight impairment is found.

The goal is to encourage eye health care so children of our communities have the opportunity for good eyesight now and in the future. Undetected vision problems hamper the ability of youngsters to learn and to fully develop their potential, according to a press release from the Potsdam Lions.

Between fall 2016 and May 2017, teams of volunteers from the Potsdam Lions visited several educational facilities in Colton, Parishville, and Potsdam to screen the vision of youngsters for potential problems. Working with the health care personnel at each school, Head Start, pre-K, kindergarten and first-grade students whose parents had given permission had their vision screened.

Of the 182 students examined 21 were given a referral notice indicating that further examination was recommended. In the case of referrals a printed copy of the results is given to the appropriate medical personnel to share with the students’ parents.

For several years, the Potsdam Lions Club has participated in the Lions Screening Eyes Early (SEE) program. Modeled on work done at Vanderbilt University in the late 1990s, the New York LION SEE project is housed at the Ira G. Ross Eye Institute in Buffalo.

The goal of the project is to decrease childhood blindness through early detection and treatment of the most common vision disorders that cause amblyopia. Sometimes called “lazy eye,” amblyopia is poor vision in an eye that did not develop normal sight during early childhood. It is a common condition that affects two or three out of every 100 people. Medical research has determined that the best time to correct it is in infancy or early childhood.

Prior to fall 2016, the equipment being used required that the screening results be sent to the Eye Institute in Buffalo for interpretation and recommendations. Several months could elapse between screening and recommendations to the students’ families. In addition, the time to perform the screening could require several minutes per student, limiting the number of screenings that could be done.

In 2016, the Potsdam Lions Club acquired a Welch Allyn SPOT Vision Screener, a handheld portable device that is capable of quickly and easily detecting vision issues of individuals ranging from 6 months to 100 years. The computerized optical device evaluates light reflexes from the retina of each eye and estimates refractive error and produces data that can be printed for referrals. It does this within seconds. The speed and simplification of the process has enabled more students to be screened and more schools to be visited.

In the 2017-18 school year the schools visited will expand to include Canton and Norwood-Norfolk school districts.

The Potsdam Lions raised the funds to acquire the $7,000 Vision Scanner from generous local businesses who supported the Lions Club’s Radio Week’s fund raisers in 2014 and 2015.

The Potsdam Lions Club is expressing “sincere thanks to the business community and to WSNN and WPDM Radio for donating the air time that allowed the Lions to apply every cent raised to this worthy cause.”