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Show Pre-schoolers suffer from Amblyopia Auxiliary, Lady Lions, Business and Professional Women, the Utah Society for the Prevention of Blindness and the University of Utah chapter of Delta Gamma. -191 opthalmologists, optometrists and opticians who provided corrective treatment and then returned follow-up reports to the nurses involved in the program. --School administrators who provided screening areas. . The report was compiled by J. Fred Whitney, sight conservation specialist, Services for the Visually Handicapped Division, Utah State Office of Education. Utah schools are finding more and more preschoolers with amblyopia (or lazy eye blindness) as their screening clinics involve more youngsters. About 40,000 children were tested by volunteers and school or public health nurses in 1979. This compares com-pares to only 11,000 in. 1963. When an 18-month follow-up follow-up was done on the youngsters tested in 1978, the screenings had turned up 91 children with diagnosed amblyopia, 23 who needed crossed-eye surgery, and 543 who had other previously undiagnosed vision problems (many of this latter group may have developed amblyopia if the eye problems had gone untreated). This information is contained con-tained in a report prepared for the Utah State Board of Education. Amblyopia is arrested eye development which can be corrected readily if the condition is found before age six. If not detected, it causes severe visual loss in one eye. The huge screening effort, which is carried out at, different times during the school year in various parts of the state, was accomplished ac-complished in 1979 with the help of the following groups of people: --13,176 parents who brought their pre-school youngsters to the screenings. (Kindergarten students are also tested during school hours.) --96 school and public health nurses svho helped with the planning, training and screening. They also followed up on the referrals. --1,197 volunteers from the Parent Teacher Associatons, Utah State Medical Association |