The Signal Mountain Lions are involved in a large project that will be showcased in a LOW VISION Expo to be held on April 8, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the Coolidge Park Walker Pavilion on 1 River Street in Chattanooga.
This LOW VISION project has a focus of helping people with irreversible vision loss, or low vision. These individuals are not blind as we typically think of blindness. Rather, they have lost part of their vision and that loss is impacting many activities of daily life such as driving and reading. The project is based on a system developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins. One of these researchers, Dr.
Robert Massof, has been a Lion for many years. He was behind a large Lions Club International Foundation grant to develop this system. It is expected to be a nation wide program over the next 5-7 years. Tennessee is one of 2 states that will be utilized to serve as the pilot program for developing the LOW VISION project. Locally, there are 5 major players in this effort: Lions, Signal Centers, Southeast Vision Rehabilitation, Siskin Hospital for Physical Rehabilitation, and the UTC Occupational Therapy Doctorate program.
The Lions LOW VISION project's objective is to evolve into a similar nation wide Lions program called Kids Sight Screening that provides free visual screenings for all children age 2 to 6 years of age to identify early symptoms of factors that lead to various vision problems. Early detection of these factors make for easier treatment and prevention of blindness.