Think about coaching for months or years to qualify for the swimming competitors of a lifetime. All these hours, all these practices. You rise up on the block awaiting the beginning gun as you gaze out towards the pool and see nothing however a blur.
This state of affairs is a actuality for a few of our athletes and Particular Olympics Wisconsin offers help for these athletes by means of the Particular Olympics Lions Golf equipment Worldwide Basis Opening Eyes® program.
Led by volunteer imaginative and prescient care professionals and attainable by means of a grant from the Lions Golf equipment Worldwide Basis, Opening Eyes® offers imaginative and prescient screenings, refraction, and prescription eyewear, sun shades and sports activities goggles to Particular Olympics Wisconsin athletes, together with prescription swim goggles when applicable. Athletes who would not have a prescription obtain sun shades.
On the 2022 Celebration Video games Opening Eyes® occasion, eight athletes have been offered prescription swim goggles. One in all them was Particular Olympics Wisconsin athlete and Unified Management Specialist, Lexi Galarowicz.
Opening Eyes® Quick Details
19%
of athletes by no means had an eye fixed examination
36%
want new prescription glasses
430,000+
assessments world huge
260,000+
prescription eye glasses
500+
educated Scientific Administrators
Lexi, who’s legally blind, defined why these goggles are so vital to her.
“I’ve restricted imaginative and prescient and I solely have imaginative and prescient in a single eye,” Lexi defined. “I don’t have any depth notion or peripheral imaginative and prescient. I’m utterly night time blind.”
“One of the simplest ways I can describe it’s if you happen to put one hand over considered one of your eyes and made a very small circle along with your fingers and put that over your different eye … that’s how a lot I can see,” stated Lexi.
Her imaginative and prescient troubles are amplified when she’s within the water.
“There’s a “T” painted on the underside of the pool on the finish of the lane that allows you to know when to start out your flip. I can’t see that. It does nothing for me.”
Along with her prescription goggles, Lexi could make out the “T” on the underside of the pool. With out them, a volunteer wants to face on the pool deck with a protracted stick and faucet her, notifying her when to start out her flip.
Lexi acquired prescription swim goggles by means of the Opening Eyes® program and the distinction has been outstanding. Along with really having the ability to see extra when within the water and initially, the goggles assist outdoors the water as nicely.
“Earlier than my prescription goggles, I needed to placed on my common goggles at staging after which be escorted to the beginning space and escorted again when my warmth was over,” stated Lexi. “With my prescription goggles, I can put them on and ensure they match correctly and never need to rush on the pool deck to verify they match proper and would keep on throughout my race.”
For a lot of athletes, transportation points, entry to care, and the price of corrective lenses are all limitations to seeing clearly and acting at their finest.
In truth, a big proportion of Particular Olympics athletes have unmet imaginative and prescient wants. Opening Eyes® knowledge revealed that 35% of athletes examined want prescription glasses and 15% have an eye fixed illness. Many athletes have by no means even had an eye fixed examination.
“Opening Eyes® is about extra than simply offering eye exams and corrective eyewear for our athletes,” Particular Olympics Wisconsin Senior Director of Well being Packages Brittany Hoegh stated.
“Opening Eyes® is about offering schooling to athletes, mother and father and coaches in regards to the significance of normal eye care,” Hoegh additional defined. “Our objective is to extend information of visible and eye well being wants of individuals with mental disabilities by means of further analysis and make everlasting adjustments within the attitudes of eye care professionals in regards to the imaginative and prescient care wants of individuals with mental disabilities.”
The partnership of Particular Olympics and Lions Golf equipment Worldwide is dramatically increasing the trouble’s scope, together with the event of Practice-the-Coach periods to create a powerful volunteer drive of imaginative and prescient well being professionals. The partnership allows Opening Eyes to succeed in one of many world’s most underserved inhabitants: these with mental disabilities.
This system is totally operated by volunteers, led by this system’s scientific director, Dr. Kellye Knueppel. Dr. Knueppel began Opening Eyes® in Wisconsin in 2001 and was the recipient of the Golisano Well being Award at Spring Video games in 2023.
“It’s an honor and a pleasure to offer this program for our Particular Olympics Wisconsin athletes. Yearly we discover a number of athletes who aren’t even conscious that they’ve an issue with their imaginative and prescient and that we are able to do one thing about it. It’s a blessing to have the ability to clarify to them, their households and coaches what’s going on with their imaginative and prescient. Through the years now we have additionally been capable of assist particular athletes with distinctive imaginative and prescient conditions like Lexi’s. We’re trying ahead to seeing outdated pals and making some new ones after we present this system on the State Summer season Video games!”
Dr. Kellye Knueppel, Program Scientific Director
Opening Eyes® might be screening athletes on the 2024 Summer season Video games in Whitewater on June 7 within the Williams Middle from 9:30 to three:30. Ensure to cease by and get screened!
