CIHR Cafe Scientifique Presents… ‘How to Stay Young? Novel Approaches to Aging’

One January 27, 2012 from 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM visit the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (Auditorium A/B, 3rd Level – 980 Oliver Road Thunder Bay, Ontario) for this informative seminar.

Please RSVP: Shannon Villalta villaltas@tbh.net. This event is FREE and open to the public. Food and parking passes will be provided.

For more information contact Marcello Bernardo at 684-6000-4441.

In an effort to encourage the community to adopt more environmentally friendly lifestyles and reduce their individual carbon footprints on the planet, two health-care groups in the City of Thunder Bay are competing against each other to set an example to the public.

The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, together with St. Joseph’s Care Group, have teamed up to encourage their employees and squad of volunteers to support eco-friendly transportation. The two organizations are setting their sights sites on having the most number of healthy commuters join the national Commuters Challenge.

And so far things are looking good, with around 5,000 volunteers and members from both groups expected to carpool, take public transportation, bike, and of course, walk for the cause. For Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre’s president, Ron Saddington, he hopes that people actually change their lifestyles and commit to the simple practices they’ll be adopting for the week-long activity.

He adds that he’ll be probably be walking to work the whole week and maybe even after that.

The Commuter Challenge is a week-long event that kicks off on the 30th of May and ends on the 5th of June. Everyone is invited to join the challenge.

In an effort to investigate the rates of aboriginal mothers who breastfeed their babies, as well as the number of slips and falls by patients in the province of Ontario, the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario recently donated more than $250,000 to fund studies aimed at looking in to the problem.

Supporters of the studies say that the findings could have a dramatic effect on the health of residents in the region and could also help physicians, nurses, and other healthcare workers provide solutions to prevent the first problem, and then the next.

According to Rhonda Crocker Ellacott, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre’s chief nursing executive and VP, the hospital has over 40 falls by patients each month – a number that clearly needs to be addressed.

Some of the measures Ellacott wants to implement at the hospital include using a new strategy when admitting high-risk seniors, checking the environment surrounding the patient, securing their restraints, and instructing nurses to recognize and keep a close eye on patients likely to suffer from falls.

The study on breastfeeding on the other hand, will be done by Karen McQueen of Lakehead University. She and her team of researchers will look into why aboriginal women stop breastfeeding earlier than other mothers in Canada.