Community Outreach Clinics: Elder Care

Since 1998, the Home Vision Care Clinic has provided home visits to elderly and disabled patients who are unable to access vision care at an in-office clinic. Traveling in a Berkeley Optometry van specially equipped for this purpose, OD students and clinical faculty members make "house calls" to patients who typically cannot leave their private or nursing home environment (or sometimes their bed). Frequently, these patients have uncorrected vision loss that prevents them from reading, watching television, or performing basic daily activities.

LifeLong Medical Care (LMC) is the umbrella organization for several community clinics serving economically at-risk populations in northern Alameda County. The mission of LMC is:

“to promote the long-term health and well-being of people of all ages, origins, and races in the East Bay, especially but not solely the economically at-risk, through providing a continuum of quality preventative and primary health care and social services, and advocating for conditions that sustain a healthy social and physical environment.”

Berkeley Optometry van for home vision care (L) Dr. Whiteside; (R) 4th-yr. R. Vesper

Over-60 Health Center Berkeley, CA

Since 2000, Berkeley Optometry students and clinical faculty members have provided vision care to the elderly population served at the new LMC site, the Over-60 Health Center (at Sacramento and Alcatraz Avenue in Berkeley).