Whitesville Lions Club Provides Free Vision Screening

Pictured are Prisha Vaidya, a preschool student at Burns Elementary School, participates in a vision screening provided by Charlotte Arnett (left), Kidsight chairman and vice district governor for Kentucky Lions District 43E. Also pictured is Lions Club member Patricia Burch.

The Whitesville Lions Club, working with the Kentucky Lions Eye Foundation’s “Kidsight” program, is visiting local elementary schools to provide vision screenings with new equipment called a “PediaVision Camera.” The new photoscreening technology simply requires the child to look into the hand-held monitor. By assessing the way light reflects off the eye, the screening can detect whether the child is at risk for developing serious eye problems. The screenings are evaluated by trained technicians at the Kentucky Lions Eye Foundation’s lab in Louisville.

 Photoscreening helps identify improperly aligned eyes (strabismus); obstructions that interfere with light passing through the eye (cataracts and ptosis) that can cause amblyopia; and imperfect refractive powers of the eye (nearsightedness, farsightedness, anisometropia and astigmatism). If these conditions are identified, parents are notified and provided with listings for ophthalmologists and optometrists in our community.

Lions Club volunteers are providing the FREE screening for preschools in the Daviess County Public Schools district. They will be at Burns Elementary School at 1 p.m. today (Feb. 23); Highland Elementary School on Monday, Feb. 27; and at Southern Oaks Elementary School on Tuesday, March 6. Screenings are scheduled both days at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. in order to accommodate morning and afternoon preschool classes.