Posts Tagged ‘Halifax’
Community Based Arts for Seniors
Veith Street Gallery Studio Association through the Visual Connections Project is pleased to present the TIME FRAMES PROGRAM
The Time Frames Program is a brand new 10-week long program that provides a vehicle for adults 55 and older with disabilities and seniors to express themselves through community based arts programs while at the same time addressing various issues facing the communities that they are a part of. In effect, this program is a community development program for under served communities that tap into the lived experiences of community elders. There will also be an inter-generational component in the program. Elders and youth will collaborate on community based art projects that address identified needs or issues within a community.
Dates: Thursday September 15th – November 17th, 2011
Times: 1:00pm – 3:30pm
Location: Seniors Lounge, Bloomfield Centre, 2786 Agricola Street
Participants can register by mail by sending in the registration form to the address on the form, or on line here.
New blog from Geriatric Medicine Research
Geriatric Medicine Research at Dalhousie University/Capital Health, has a new blog launched earlier this month, that brings you up to date news from the world of research in aging. GMR has been leading the way in patient and carer centrered research into frailty and dementia for two decades: 
Founded in 1991 by Dr. Kenneth Rockwood, Geriatric Medicine Research (GMR) has pioneered an interdisciplinary approach to the study of aging, frailty and dementia that has allowed us to work with artists, philosophers, linguists, sociologists, applied mathematicians and data miners, just to name a few.
Innovative work being done by the GMR team here at Dalhousie University/Capital Health includes tools and services to allow for a more responsive system of care for aging patients, as well as work into the effects of social vulnerability on health and mortality. We have also initiated a specialized clinic to help elderly patients understand the benefits and risks of treatments available to them.Recent work has also begun to help better understand and provide for the needs of those who care for our expanding population of dementia patients, and we currently head up a cross-Canada network for knowledge translation in the field of dementia research.
GMR has a long history of research collaborations with groups as close as Ontario and as far flung as China. We hope you will take a minute to look explore our site, the varied work we do, and the many groups who work with us.
Check out their blog here.
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Seniors’ Health Information Series
The HEALTH Committee (Helping Elderly Adults Live Their Healthiest) and The Centre for Health Care of the Elderly, Capital District Health Authority, present2010/ 2011 Seniors’ Health Info Series
“Staying Healthy in Mid-Life and Beyond”
Dr. Jean Gray
Topic: Medicines: Are we Getting Our Money’s Worth?
Speaker: Jean D Gray, MD, FRCPC, Past President, American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Professor Emeritus, Division of Medical Education, Dalhousie University.
Date: Monday, March 28, 2011
Time: 1:30 – 3 p.m.
Location: Royal Bank Theatre, QEII Health Sciences Centre, Halifax Infirmary, 1796 Summer Street, Halifax.
These presentations will be broadcast across Nova Scotia via the TeleHealth Network at various community locations.
Light refreshments provided.
For brochures or inquiries,
Telephone 473-8603
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The PATH Clinic: help for chronically ill seniors.
Do you work with older, chronically ill patients? The Palliative and Therapeutic Harmonization Clinic would like you to know that they are here to help.
Older patients with chronic illness, their family/friends, and their health care providers face many challenging issues as they plan for the road ahead of them. They may have questions about how to get the most out of life, how to make health care decisions that reflect their values, how to manage symptoms, and what to expect.
Drs. Laurie Mallery and. Paige Moorhouse, both of the Division of Geriatric Medicine at Dalhousie University, have developed the PATH (Palliative and Therapeutic Harmonization) clinic to help people find answers to these questions.
Located in the Geriatric Ambulatory Clinic, on the first floor of the Camp Hill Veterans’ Hospital, the PATH clinic is aimed at older patients with advanced chronic disease who want to learn more about health care planning, or are interested in integrating a palliative approach into their existing care plan.
“There are times when a person is frail and nearing the end of life that medical treatments meant to improve health can actually create new problems or prolong dying,” says Dr. Moorhouse.
The PATH process involves three clinic visits, which include:
- a comprehensive physical, psychological and social assessment,
- an exchange of expectations and information between the patient, family and health care providers,
- learning new skills, to help the patient and their family with future health decisions
The doctors, nurses, and other health professionals in the PATH clinic have specialized training and many years of experience working with frail older adults and their families. They can help guide you through the process of making health care decisions that will protect your best interests and quality of life.
For more information :
Phone: (902) 473-8603
Fax: (902) 473-7133
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Free Public Lecture – Alzheimer disease: good days, bad days
The Canadian Coalition for Seniors Mental Health (CCSMH) is holding their 4th National conference on September 27-28 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 
As part of this event, Dr. Kenneth Rockwood will be giving his annual Kathryn Allen Weldon Public Lecture on Alzheimer’s disease.
This year’s topic is “Why do people with Alzheimer’s disease have good days and bad days?”
Date: September 27,2010
Time: 5:30pm Reception, 6:00pm Lecture
Place: Atlantic Ballroom, Westin Nova Scotia Hotel, 1181 Hollis St, Halifax NS
All are welcome – this is a free, public lecture.
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GANS Lunch and Learn video available online
The first video from this spring’s series of Lunch and Learns isnow available for online viewing. this video features Dr. Paige Moorhouse’s lecture on the new Palliative and Therapeutic Harmonization Clinic, which offers resources and skills for chronically ill older adult to assist them in dealing with their current and future medical issues/wishes.
The video is in four parts, due to its length, and can be viewed at the following links:
For more information about the PATH Clinic, you can contact peggyhobbs@cdha.nshealth.ca
Thanks to the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit for hosting these videos on their YouTube channel! There are other videos there on topics such as driving and dementia, frailty, and more.
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China-Canada Research Collaboration travels to Beijing.
An innovative collaboration between research groups in Beijing, China and Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada is leading to a better understanding of the state of the aging population in China.
Left to right: Xiaowei Song, Pulin Yu, Kenneth Rockwood, Chinese Community Doctors (3), Xianghua Fang
Led in Canada by Dr. Kenneth Rockwood of the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit (GMRU) and in China by Dr. Xianghua Fang at the Beijing Institute of Geriatrics, a team of researchers are spending three years working together on issues that arise due to an aging population
The increasing proportion of elderly people presents multiple challenges for health care, and this is particularly dramatic in China where between 2000 and 2050, the proportion of people aged 65 and older will rise from 7% to 23%, numbering more than 332 million.
There is a great amount of health data on this population accumulated in China, but the research capacity to process and explore these data is still limited. This collaboration makes use of resources and skills of those at the GMRU to help advance understanding of this problem in China.
Representing the Chinese team in Canada is Shi Jing, an epidemiologist who is not only acquiring the skills to analyze the Chinese datasets, but will take these skills back with her to China at the end of her one year stay here, and pass these on to other researchers there.
The Canadian team is currently preparing for a trip to China in May, where they will make several presentations at the 3rd National Conference of the Prevention of Common Diseases in the Elderly in Yichang Hubei, May 7-9. The China-Canada Collaboration is funded jointly by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Institute of Aging) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
The Digital Divide – have your say!
The Digital Divide is the gap between those with reliable and effective access to internet and infromtaion technology, and those with limited or no access. 
The Community Access Program (C@P), an initiative of the government of Canada, provides “Internet access to those who would not normally have it due to economic, social or geographic barriers. Currently 40 C@P sites in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) provide urban and rural communities affordable access to computers and the internet.”
C@P currently has an online survey that wants to find out where you stand in the Digital Divide. You can pop by the Halifax Regional C@P site to check them out, and link to the survey directly here.
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Renowned expert on emergency preparedness to speak at Dalhousie.
As part of its “Distinguished Leaders in Medicine” series, Dalhousie Medical School has invited Dr. Roz Lasker, an internationally renowned expert on emergency preparedness and community planning to speak.Dr. Lasker will give a public talk on Thursday, November 26 at 4 p.m. in the IWK’s OE Smith Auditorium on ”Untested Assumptions: the Achilles Heel of Emergency Preparedness”. 
Dr. Lasker holds an appointment as clinical professor of public health at Columbia
University’s School of Public Health.For over a decade, she directed the Division of Public Health and the Centre for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at The New York Academy of Medicine where “…she worked with hundreds of people and organizations around the country to study how collaboration strengthens the ability of a group to identify, understand, and solve problems and to develop evidence-based tools that practitioners, evaluators, and funders can use to assess and strengthen collaborative processes. Her research and publications have focused on medicine and public health collaboration, partnership synergy, the public’s role in emergency preparedness, and the voice and influence of historically excluded groups in community participation processes.”
Find a list of speakers in this series, including Dr, Lasker, here.
Local researchers use listening skills to better understand Alzheimer’s
Researchers at the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit, here in Halifax, believe that listening to patients and their families is the key to garnering new insights into problems like Alzheimer’s disease. 
Because research is often viewed with some skepticism, or seen as something impractical or difficult to understand, they are busy making a series of short videos, describing the purpose, methods, results and possible applications of some of their recent published work - in plain English. By making their work engaging to watch and easy to understand, they hope to break down some of the traditional barriers between researchers and those who could benefit from their work.
Their first effort, explaining recent insights into how and why Alzheimer’s patients repeat themselves, is available for viewing here.