Special Olympics and Lions Clubs International launch first-of-its-kind Global Vision Curriculum
Special Olympics and Lions Clubs International are proud to offer “Opening Eyes to Intellectual Disability: Improving the Vision of People with Intellectual Disability,” a Global Vision Care Curriculum for vision care professionals and students to help combat the sight problems that people with intellectual disabilities face every day. The curriculum represents state-of-the-art science and clinical practice guidelines for providing quality diagnostic and vision care services for people with intellectual disabilities and is the only vision curriculum focused on this population in the world.
Special Olympics and Lions Clubs International launched the Global Vision Care Curriculum on 13 October 2005 during World Sight Day celebrations in Hyderabad, India.
The Global Vision Care Curriculum provides vision care professionals and students with the training they need to effectively treat people with intellectual disabilities. Special Olympics research indicates that people with intellectual disabilities do not receive regular or appropriate vision care, and currently very few vision care professionals complete their professional training with experience treating people with intellectual disabilities.
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Special Olympics Asia Pacific Managing Director Troy Greisen (left) and Lions Clubs International President Dr. Ashok Mehta examine a copy of the Global Vision Curriculum, launched on 13 October 2005 during World Sight Day celebrations in Hyderabad, India. |
A student version of the curriculum will be implemented in vision care institutions, universities and optometry schools, ophthalmological residencies, etc. There is also a professional version that will be used for continuing education credits for practicing professionals.
The student version reviews the history of people with intellectual disabilities, what is intellectual disability and some basic global statistics on prevalence. The student version also covers practical and tangible "best practices" on patient relationships, how to garner a reliable medical history and how to extract correct and reliable information from the patient during the vision exam.
The professional version offers a modified version of the student version, focusing more on the practical portions than on prevalence and history.
Special Olympics distributed the curriculum to optometrists and ophthalmologists in more than 43 countries who served as Clinical Directors for the Special Olympics-Lions Clubs International Opening Eyes® program. The Global Vision Care Curriculum is available in both English and Mandarin, and is due to be translated into Arabic, French, Spanish and Portuguese during the subsequent translation phase.
The curriculum was created by an international panel of public health experts, optometrists, ophthalmologists, physicians and representatives from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and led by Dr. Sandra Block from the Illinois College of Optometry.
"As we analyzed the data from our Healthy Athletes Program we discovered that a consistent problem was the lack of adequate educational preparation and practical experience for health care professionals,” said Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver. “This global curriculum is designed to provide that specialized training for vision care students and professionals in all types of practice settings that will enable them to meet the vision care needs of people with intellectual disabilities and provide them with the high quality care they deserve. The global vision curriculum is another example of the continuing cooperation between Special Olympics and Lions Clubs International."
To learn more or obtain a copy of the curriculum please e-mail rdease@specialolympics.org. The curriculum is available for free and will be shipped to you.
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