
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 7, 1995                   TAG: 9503070084
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-6   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

TAKE NOTE

There may well be a cataract in your future. Almost 13 million Americans now have some degree of the condition, including 300,000 Virginians. For people older than 65 years, the chance of developing a cataract increases to 50 percent.

Prevent Blindness Virginia is offering free information about cataracts during March, Cataract Awareness Month. Cataracts occur when the eye's natural lens clouds, a progressive disorder that eventually leads to blindness.

The most common treatment is the surgical removal of the cloudy lens, and it has become one of medicine's safest surgeries. It's a procedure that recently became even more accessible with the Federal Drug Administration's approval in December 1994 of a new replacement lens. Pulaski Community Hospital is now conducting that surgery and is reporting excellent results. What once was an operation that required lengthy hospital time is now a 20-minute outpatient procedure that requires only a local anesthetic and a three- or four-hour hospital stay.

For more information call Prevent Blindness Virginia at (804) 355-0773 or Pulaski County Hospital at 980-6822.

by CNB