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ENLARGE
Newest members of the Rifle Lions Club include, from left, Christine Bionaz, Jason Pooler and Richard Nance. The Rifle Lions Club will celebrate 75 years of service to the Rifle community in 2010.
For years, the Lions Club in Rifle has conducted a “KidSight” program to screen children for early detection of potential vision problems.
The local club has already done several screenings around Rifle and has several still scheduled.
The free screenings are as easy as having your child's picture taken, according to the Rifle Lion's Club. Volunteers use either an MTI PhotoScreener or the Welch Allyn SureSight — both state-of-the-art vision screening devices which are 85-90 percent accurate in detecting vision problems.
“The instrument is a digital screener that is able to evaluate the eye,” said Norma Miller, president of the Rifle chapter of the Lion's Club. “It looks at the cylinder of the eye, the sphere of the eye and measures the difference of the two. If it's abnormal, it will show.”
While the Lions Club does not diagnose any problems, it does make referrals to an optometrist or opthmalogist if any abnormal results are detected.
The screenings are done on children under six years of age.
“If we can catch the children before six, there's a good chance they can be corrected,” Miller said.
The screenings look for things such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, strabismus (misaligned eyes) and anisometropia (unequal refractive power.) “Young children often compensate for vision problems so well that parents, teachers and pediatricians are unaware of a problem,” according to the Lions Club. “By the time a child is old enough to be in primary grades, many of these common vision-robbing conditions can no longer be effectively treated. Amblyopia (often called ‘lazy eye') can develop when an undetected vision problem goes untreated during a child's formative years.”
Poor vision can account for low academic performance, low self-esteem, social and behavioral problems, the Lions Club says.
The results of the vision screenings are usually available within one month and if a possible vision problem is detected, a referral packet will be included for parents to take to a doctor for a complete diagnosis.
The next screenings in Rifle are scheduled at 10 a.m. at MOPS on Tuesday, Dec. 1 and at 9:30 a.m. at the Colorado Mountain College West Garfield Campus preschool on Thursday, Dec. 3.
For more information about the free KidSight screenings, contact Norma Miller at 625-8382.
The local club has already done several screenings around Rifle and has several still scheduled.
The free screenings are as easy as having your child's picture taken, according to the Rifle Lion's Club. Volunteers use either an MTI PhotoScreener or the Welch Allyn SureSight — both state-of-the-art vision screening devices which are 85-90 percent accurate in detecting vision problems.
“The instrument is a digital screener that is able to evaluate the eye,” said Norma Miller, president of the Rifle chapter of the Lion's Club. “It looks at the cylinder of the eye, the sphere of the eye and measures the difference of the two. If it's abnormal, it will show.”
While the Lions Club does not diagnose any problems, it does make referrals to an optometrist or opthmalogist if any abnormal results are detected.
The screenings are done on children under six years of age.
“If we can catch the children before six, there's a good chance they can be corrected,” Miller said.
The screenings look for things such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, strabismus (misaligned eyes) and anisometropia (unequal refractive power.) “Young children often compensate for vision problems so well that parents, teachers and pediatricians are unaware of a problem,” according to the Lions Club. “By the time a child is old enough to be in primary grades, many of these common vision-robbing conditions can no longer be effectively treated. Amblyopia (often called ‘lazy eye') can develop when an undetected vision problem goes untreated during a child's formative years.”
Poor vision can account for low academic performance, low self-esteem, social and behavioral problems, the Lions Club says.
The results of the vision screenings are usually available within one month and if a possible vision problem is detected, a referral packet will be included for parents to take to a doctor for a complete diagnosis.
The next screenings in Rifle are scheduled at 10 a.m. at MOPS on Tuesday, Dec. 1 and at 9:30 a.m. at the Colorado Mountain College West Garfield Campus preschool on Thursday, Dec. 3.
For more information about the free KidSight screenings, contact Norma Miller at 625-8382.
