Happening Now!! West Point Cadet Schleck Presenting on Belt Canes

Cogan Ophthalmic History Society 2025 Meeting

This is the 37th meeting. The final day of the Society meeting is today, Sunday, April 27 on zoom and in person at the UCHealth Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center, on the Anschutz Medical Campus of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado.

During the presentations today (1-1:45 EST)

Mary Claire Schleck will be Revisiting the Role of the White Cane for Congenitally Blind Children - a paper by her, Robert Enzenauer, and Grace Ambrose-Zaken

This presentation aims to highlight the oversight in patient care that has consistently disadvantaged those with a congenital Mobility Visual Impairment or Blindness (MVI/B). MVI/B is a vision impairment that prevents visual anticipatory control, making walking inherently dangerous. In the 20th century, tools designed to reduce the danger of blind walking, such as the long cane (invented in 1945), were invented to assist newly blinded war veterans. The United States Army repurposed army surplus to create long canes for their blinded WWII veterans. In the 1950s, the reality of the Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) epidemic became unavoidable. Due to parents’ insistence that their blind children attend local public schools and an increase in academic publications on the subject, the significant developmental gap between sighted and blind children became apparent. In the 1960s, Orientation & Mobility (O&M) demonstration projects in high schools found that children with a congenital MVI/B were unable to travel independently and lacked the skills to learn how to use a long cane. Despite these findings, no new assistive safety devices were invented. The question becomes, why? If it is deemed unsafe for a blinded war hero to walk independently, does it not equally follow that it is unsafe for a blind child to do so? White Cane Safety Day, established in 1964, champions the long cane as a symbol of autonomy and empowerment for individuals with an MVI/B. Yet, the complexity of using a long white cane routinely causes it to fail more blind people than it helps. In response to this oversight, Dr. Ambrose-Zaken, the daughter of renowned WWII historian Stephen E. Ambrose, invented the Pediatric Belt Cane in 2014. The Pediatric Belt Cane is an assistive safety device for congenital MVI/B. Its lightweight rectangular frame attaches to a belt with magnets that is worn around the waist. Since Dr. Enzenauer attended Dr. Ambrose-Zaken’s motor research panel at Low Vision 2023, he has helped to bring this medically necessary tool to the awareness of fellow Pediatric Ophthalmologists and patients. In 2024, the American Academy of Pediatrics Uniformed Services Section recognized their work on improved gait outcomes in children with a cerebral/cortical visual impairment (CVI). In summary, this lecture will provide a historical review of the oversight in care for children with congenital MVI/B and address this gap by presenting the medical necessity of assistive safety devices for congenital MVI/B.