“Can you hear me now?”

“Can you see me?”

“Do you even remember who I am?”

Evanston residents unsure of the answers to these questions found help at the city’s first vision, hearing and memory clinic Wednesday morning at the Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave.

The stream of elderly people kept nurses from the Chicago Glaucoma Consultants and graduate students from the Northwestern’s Speech and Language Clinic and Audiology Service busy checking for glaucoma, other vision impairment and hearing disabilities. The clinic also offered an optional memory evaluation.

All three services were free to Evanston residents.

The idea, a part of the city’s Older Americans Month, was organized by aging services ombudsman Nancy Flowers but originated in Mayor Lorraine Morton’s concerns about the dangers of glaucoma.

Morton dealt with poor eyesight and several ophthalmologists for two to three years before she was diagnosed with glaucoma in both eyes.

“I talked about the clinic because I think it can prevent people from having the problems I had,” Morton said. “You might not even realize you have glaucoma.”

Glaucoma is a disease of the optic nerve that increases pressure inside the eye, said Elizabeth Kim, a technician for the Chicago Glaucoma Consultants. The disease is the leading cause of blindness in the U.S. today but is difficult to detect.

“It is a sneaky disease with no warning symptoms,” Kim said. “Even just regular eye exams are important.”

Kim said the clinic’s purpose was as much to raise awareness as it was to check the eyes of at-risk residents.

After patients checked in at the clinic, technicians asked them to read a chart to check each eye. Technicians then used a special instrument called a tonopen to measure the eye’s pressure, Kim said.

High pressure in the eye is one symptom of glaucoma. Patients also received a consultation from one of the doctors of Chicago Glaucoma Consultants.

Some treatments are available if glaucoma is diagnosed early. Eye drops can help lower eye pressure, and if drops are unsuccessful, surgery may be performed to decrease pressure.

About 50 people made appointments for the clinic, and walk-ins were examined as well, Flowers said. Several residents, including Larry Marks, said the location and cost caught their interest.

“I came down because my wife complains that I don’t hear what she’s saying,” Marks said, laughing. “Actually, she should probably be here, too, because she says she can’t hear me, either.”

Taking care of the community’s vision and hearing is important not only for aging citizens, Marks said, but also for youth who regularly strain their ears with loud music pumping through their iPod headphones.

“If you leave these symptoms untreated, it’s more expensive for society,” he said.

Morton and Flowers both said they would like to see the clinic become a yearly occurrence.

“People want to remain in their own homes and as independent as possible,” Morton said. “What good is getting older if you can’t see, you can’t hear, you can’t eat?”

Reach Laura Olson at [email protected].