Lions Clubs screen children’s eyes
Berl Tiskus
Glasses sometimes block the mobile vision screener used by Missoula and Polson Lions Club members.
Berl Tiskus
Colleen Sperry, left, Ken Cameron, Dennis DeVries, all from the Polson Lions Club, and Judy Lehman, Missoula Southside Lions Club search for Tyneesha Brown’s name on the list of students. Lehman spent three days inputting the data.
Berl Tiskus
Polson Lions Club member Colleen Sperry uses a PlusOptix mobile vision screener to test student Stanley Redwood’s eyes.
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POLSON — “I saw red lights in a triangle form,” said Jeremiah Coutts, forming a triangle with his fingers and thumbs.
The third-grader was describing an eye check he’d just been administered.
On Jan. 7 Polson Lions Club and Missoula Southside Lions Club visited Linderman Elementary School with mobile vision screeners. All the students took a turn looking at the PlusOptix light, which goes through the pupillary opening and then does a refractory measurement, according to Millie Nesladek, Linderman School nurse.
The machines screen for nearsightedness, farsightedness, significant variance in eye power, blurred vision, asymmetric vision and unequal pupil size.
Students receive either a pass or a refer reading. The school nurse receives a flashdrive containing all the data and can print out a list of children whose parents need to schedule an eye doctor appointment as well as why the student was referred.
Nesladek learned about the PlusOptix machines at the Montana Education Association Conference in Belgrade last fall. The Bozeman Lions Club presented information and Nesladek was interested. The Bozeman Lions gave her Polson resident Marvin Kaschke’s name and Judy Lehman’s name as contacts in Missoula. The three worked together to provide free screenings for which Polson kids were scheduled.
“Judy has just been awesome,” Nesladek said, since Lehman spent three days inputting student information.
Polson school nurses have been using the near and far charts to check first grade, third graders and fifth graders with stereo eye tests for kindergartners, but PlusOptix screenings take less time. Sometimes it takes half a day for one classroom, Nesladek said. The entire student body of Linderman filed through in one day.
The PlusOptix machines belong to the Missoula Lions Club, but they loaned them to Polson. Polson Lions Club members and a Missoula crew operated the machines, matching each child to his or her screening while joking with the kids.
All Polson students will be screened within the next week.
