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Back to school is just around the corner, and it’s time to consider your school district’s health requirements for children. Be prepared with the following Anchorage School District checklist. The staff at Hillside Family Medicine, in Anchorage, AK know it’s your school’s priority to ensure every child is healthy and ready to learn when September rolls around.

Back to School Family Medicine Checklist

1. General Wellness Check

An exam can spot potential health issues before problems arise. The doctor will check growth and development milestones, basic hearing and vision, reflexes, weight, and height. This is your opportunity to ask questions and share concerns about your child’s health. Diet, exercise, sleep, and behavior issues can all be a part of a wellness visit.  This is also a great opportunity to get any school medical forms completed such as the Physical Exam Form or the Sports Physical Form.

2. Vaccinations

Your school or family medicine clinic should have an up-to-date list of required vaccinations. Common vaccines include Hepatitis A & B, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough — also known as pertussis — chickenpox, polio, and flu shots. August is also National Immunization Month, which promotes vaccine awareness in time for the back-to-school period.

3. Vision Screening

family medicineAugust is Children’s Eye Health & Safety Month. Now is the perfect time to schedule an eye exam for your child — before school starts and schedules get busy. Checking a child’s vision is crucial because undiagnosed vision issues can cause poor performance in school, attention deficit, lack of coordination, headaches, eye strain, and even depression. Children are often unaware that they have trouble seeing or may be afraid to speak about it. An eye exam will catch problems before they become advanced.

4. Sleep Schedule

It’s hard to enforce regular bedtimes in the height of summer. But, as summer ends, start getting kids back into regular bedtime routines so they are rested and ready to start school. Children need about 10 hours of sleep a night to function well. Consider removing kids’ devices from the bedroom and making sure computers are powered off.

Get your kids off to a healthy start for the new school year by using this checklist. Prevention is the best way to keep the entire family healthy. Hillside Family Medicine LLC & Occupational Medicine offers family medicine and occupational medicine for the Anchorage community. Call (907) 344-0200 to make an appointment or go to their website to learn more about their services.

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