The Crookston Lions Club has been busy doing vision screening for children at area daycares. Screenings are in conjunction with MD5M Lions KidSight and the Minnesota Lions Vision Foundation. Vision screening produces images of a child’s eyes to determine the presence of eye disorders including far- and near-sightedness, in addition, astigmatism, anisometropia (unequal refractive power), strabismus, (misaligned eyes), and media opacities (e.g., cataracts) which may result in amblyopia (lazy eye). No physical contact is made with a child and no eye drops are used during the vision screening. This screening is approximately 85-90% effective in detecting problems that can cause reduced vision.
The screening itself can take anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds to get a good reading. The screener gives a pass or referral for each child once it’s complete. Approximately 10% of the children screened usually get a referral to take back to their eye care professional for a more thorough exam. Participation is voluntary. The screening is designed for pre-school-aged children and children who are younger than 6-months old will not be screened and no child will be screened without a signed and completed consent form. Each individual child needs his/her own consent form. There are no foreseeable risks to participating in the Lions KidSight vision screening.
The locations where the Crookston Lions conducted the screenings were: Sunrise Center at Cathedral school, Little Villagers at the Summit, Auntie Em’s, and the Early Childhood Development Center at UMC. “We do plan on contacting and setting up events at in-home daycares in the future, and upon request,” said Crookston Lions Club member Aaron Horak. “We screened 46 kids ages 9 months to 7 years old with only one referral! The feedback we got from all of the daycare providers was very positive and said they for sure would love to do another event next year.”
The Crookston Lions Club hasn’t put on an event like this before, but because of new screening devices purchased and loaned out to the group from the district MD5M Lions the Crookston Lions members are excited to start fulfilling their international cause of preventing blindness, restore eyesight, improve eye health and eye care for the Crookston community at large.
Aaron Horak and Crookston Lions President Angel Weasner and her son Deklyn doing a screening at Auntie Em’s on Wednesday.
