Independence is key for older adults. Indeed, a recent National Institute of Ageing (NIA)/TELUS Health Survey found that 91 per cent of Canadians of all ages, and almost 100 per cent of Canadians 65 years of age and older, report that they plan on supporting themselves to live safely and independently in their own home as long as possible.
The SHS/UHN Savlov/Schmidt Summer Scholars Program in Geriatrics looked different this year. Instead of shadowing physicians, geriatricians, nurses and other allied health professionals in both hospital and community-based clinical settings, for the first time the program needed to be free of clinical encounters and conducted entirely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
June was Seniors Month in Ontario, an annual opportunity to recognize the contributions that older adults have and continue to make in communities across the province and beyond.
July 24 is International Self Care Day, a day to raise awareness about self-care and the important role it plays in leading a healthy lifestyle. But what is self-care and how can older adults, caregivers and healthcare workers incorporate self-care practices in to their daily life? We talked to Leanne Ginty, Director, Nursing Education and Academic Affairs at Sinai Health, about the importance of self-care and how she practices self-care in her own life.
On June 25, 2020 well over 850 people from Canada, the U.S., Ecuador and Kenya came together for the 2020 SHS/UHN COVID-19 Special Geriatrics Institute Education Day, which was also our first ever virtual conference.
In 2017, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health proclaimed loneliness to be a major societal challenge that needs to be addressed. “Loneliness and social isolation are serious public health problems that cost us all. They affect our productivity, health and well-being – even how long we live.”
For many of us, the holiday season is a time to relax with good food surrounded by our friends and loved ones. It is also a time when many of us become reconnected with our older family members.
Imagine being a medical student participating in a first-of-its-kind research project aimed at improving the care of older patients. A fantastic opportunity for many, to be sure. Fortunately, for this year’s SHS/UHN Savlov/Schmidt Summer Scholars in Geriatrics, that was exactly what they did.
The secret to living a long, independent and healthy life may be a concept that’s highly debated and inconsistently studied. Frailty, by most accounts, is a measure of an individual’s robustness and resilience or their ability to recover from events like illness and injury.
Cancer is an older person’s disease. The vast majority of new cancer cases and cancer deaths in Canada occur in individuals aged 50 and older, while the highest proportion of cancer deaths occur in Canada’s oldest – those aged 80 and older. With a rapidly ageing population, Canada is expected to see cases of cancer balloon in the coming decades with 1 in 2 Canadians being diagnosed in their lifetime and 1 in 4 dying of cancer.
