Health & Wellness
 

Innovative Elder Abuse Prevention Strategy Helps Seniors Live Safely, With Dignity Ontario Marks Elder Abuse Awareness Day http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/October2007/19/c5908.html?view=print TORONTO, Oct. 19 /CNW/ - Ontario is working hard to address and prevent elder abuse and help seniors live safely and with dignity, said Minister Responsible for Seniors Jim Bradley today as the province observes Elder Abuse Awareness Day. "There is no place for elder abuse in Ontario," said Bradley. "Making Ontarians aware of elder abuse and working with community partners to intervene, prevent and combat this growing problem is crucial to eliminating elder abuse in this province." Ontario's Strategy to Combat Elder Abuse is the first provincial strategy of its kind in Canada and focuses on three priorities: - Co-ordination of community services - Training for front-line staff - Raising public awareness about elder abuse. The Ontario Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (ONPEA) received an additional $1.65 million to continue the strategy to 2008-09. The funding supports ONPEA's seven regional elder abuse consultants who work with more than 50 elder abuse networks and coordinating committees across the province. In addition, the government has helped ONPEA launch television public service announcements to raise awareness of financial, physical and verbal abuse of seniors. The government also supports a province-wide, toll-free Victims' Support line at 1-888-579-2888. Earlier this year, the government also provided 55 local elder abuse networks with $453,000 in operational funding to support their community efforts to combat this serious problem. "Elder abuse happens in silence and continues as long as the issue is hidden," said ONPEA Executive Director Teri Kay. "Elder Abuse Awareness Day is paramount in bringing this hidden problem to the forefront so that action can be taken and seniors can live with dignity and respect." Elder Abuse Awareness Day was first proclaimed in 2004 and is marked each year in October 19. The day recognizes the between 65,000 to 160,000 of Ontario's 1.6 million seniors who have experienced, or will experience, some form of financial, emotional or physical abuse. "The McGuinty government is helping seniors get the supports and services they need and deserve," said Bradley. "That is why we are investing millions of dollars to improve the quality of life for Ontario's seniors." The McGuinty government is committed to helping Ontario's seniors live active, healthy and independent lives. Key government initiatives include: - A three-year $700 million Aging at Home Strategy that will transform community health care services by matching the needs of the local senior population with the appropriate support services - Moving toward regulating retirement homes by conducting a survey to determine the level of care and services currently being purchased by residents of Ontario's more than 700 retirement homes, and consulting stakeholders on what should be included in a standard, plain-language contract between retirement homes and residents.

Cold medicine bad for children under 6 http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2007/10/20/pf-4591463.html October 20, 2007 By AP WASHINGTON -- The medicines long used by parents to treat their children's coughs and colds don't work and shouldn't be used in those younger than six, U.S. federal health advisers recommended yesterday. The over-the-counter medicines should be studied further, even after decades in which children have received billions of doses a year, the outside experts told the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA isn't required to follow the advice of its panels of outside experts but does so most of the time. "The data that we have now is they don't seem to work," said Sean Hennessy, a University of Pennsylvania epidemiologist, one of the FDA experts gathered to examine the medicines sold to treat common cold symptoms. The recommendation applies to medicines containing one or more of the following ingredients: decongestants, antihistamines and antitussives. It doesn't apply to expectorants. The nonbinding recommendation is likely to lead to a shakeup in how the medicines - which have long escaped much scrutiny - are labelled, marketed and used. Just how and how quickly wasn't immediately clear. "If the agency chose to restrict use in children six and under, that won't necessarily lead to a ban on the products. It might lead to labelling that says 'do not use,' " said Dr. John Jenkins, director of the FDA's office of new drugs. Such labelling changes could take years to put in place, since the FDA would have to undertake a lengthy rule-making process. Jenkins suggested if the drug industry took it upon itself to make such changes, the FDA could use its enforcement discretion to allow it to do so more quickly than would be done otherwise. In fact, the Thursday-Friday meeting came just a week after the industry pre-emptively moved to eliminate sales of the non-prescription drugs for children under two. Health Canada spokesman Alastair Sinclair said the department is aware of the FDA advisory committee's meeting to make recommendations. "Health Canada will consider the results of this meeting as we move forward with our review and recommendations regarding these products," Sinclair said, reading from a prepared statement. "Health Canada is in the process of reviewing all cough and cold products in Canada to ensure their safe use ... If further regulatory actions are required for safety reasons following this review, Canadians and health-care practitioners will be informed in a timely manner." No deadline has been set, but Health Canada plans to conduct the review "in the most expeditious manner possible."

Media Technology Makes Good Servant but Bad Master? http://www.vifamily.ca/newsroom/press_oct_15_07.html Ottawa—Instant messaging. Webcams. Music and film downloads. Camera cell phones. Blogging. The proliferation of so many new forms of electronic technologies is having profound and far-reaching effects on children and families, according to a new Contemporary Family Trends paper, “Good Servant, Bad Master: Electronic Media and the Family,” released today by the Vanier Institute of the Family. Author Arlene Moscovitch reviews Canadian and international research to document the explosion of media technologies and their pervasiveness in our lives: Kids spend nearly six and a half hours per day with media, often simultaneously interacting with several. Preschoolers are the fastest growing group of online users. Almost 70% of children under two in the U.S. spend roughly two hours a day watching television programs or videos. Almost all students in grades 4 to 11 have access to a computer at home, over 60% have high-speed access, almost 70% have access to a cell phone. The advertising budget for young consumers is over $2-billion per year and estimates are that children see over 40,000 ads a year on television alone. While media technologies can provide important benefits in areas of entertainment and learning, or by helping busy families stay connected, the report highlights several issues of concern: Heavy users of electronic media in all age groups spend less time interacting with partners, children and friends. Researchers fear that excessive exposure to media among very young children may lead to problems of attention control, aggressive behaviour and poor cognitive development. At a time when obesity and diabetes rates are rising among children, 97% of the food advertisements during children’s programming are for foods high in sugar, salt and fat. Many parents worry about children being on-line for long periods and the kinds of things to which they are exposed. The key to keeping the servant from becoming the master, stresses Moscovitch, is for parents to adopt some simple guidelines: -Give kids age appropriate rules and negotiate boundaries about media use. -Help kids become more media literate, to think more critically about the media. -Be good role models. -Create parents’ groups devoted to protecting kids. Further, she argues, to some extent society must also be held accountable, adopting legislation and policies that protect children who are vulnerable to the messages they are bombarded with every day, such as a code of conduct for media professionals.

Large Variations In How Long Admitted Patients Wait In Emergency Rooms For Hospital Beds Waits tend to be longer for older patients, during the day, and on weekdays Information on: Understanding Emergency Department Wait Times October 18, 2007—Most patients admitted to an acute care hospital for reasons other than childbirth come through Canada’s emergency departments (60% outside Quebec), and the length of time these patients wait for hospital beds varies greatly, according to a new report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). The report found that in 2005, half of all patients admitted to hospital through Canada’s emergency departments (EDs) waited 1.7 hours or less for hospital beds once the decision to admit had been made, while the rest had longer waits. For example, the 10% of patients with the shortest waits were transferred immediately to acute care beds; the 10% with the longest waits waited 15.1 hours or more. Understanding Emergency Department Wait Times: Access to Inpatient Beds and Patient Flow is the third in a three-report series examining factors associated with the length of time patients spend in EDs. Every year, Canadians make 14 million visits to EDs—with more than one million patients being admitted to hospital as a result. Based on data from 277 hospitals outside of Quebec—which collect wait time data in a similar fashion—this latest report provides new insight on the length of time patients spend in the ED from the moment a physician decides to admit a patient to hospital from the ED to the moment that the patient is transferred into an acute care bed. “Experts suggest that the smooth transfer of patients to hospital beds helps to avoid emergency room crowding and ensure appropriate care for incoming patients with urgent medical needs,” says Greg Webster, CIHI’s Director of Research and Indicator Development. “By measuring how long emergency department patients are waiting for acute care beds, this report offers fresh insight on the factors associated with shorter and longer waits.” Condition and age of patient, timing of ED visit, among factors associated with longer waits In 2005, 4% of patients admitted to hospital through Canada’s EDs waited more than 24 hours for acute care beds. CIHI’s study found these patients tended to be older and have multiple health problems. They also had longer average lengths of stay in hospital after leaving the ED. Other factors associated with longer waits for access to hospital beds include the time of day, the day of the week and the month of a patient’s visit to an ED. For example, in large community and teaching hospitals, ED bed wait times were typically longer during the day, on weekdays and from November to March. “Waiting in the emergency department for inpatient beds can be hard for patients and their families,” says Dr. Michael Schull, Emergency Department Physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. “Research shows that many factors outside of the emergency department, such as how inpatient services are organized and access to care beyond the hospital’s walls, can affect how long patients wait for beds.” Waits generally longer in larger hospitals CIHI’s report found that in 2005 the waits in the ED for access to acute care beds, once the decisions to admit had been made, varied considerably by hospital type, ranging from median waits of 18 minutes in small community hospitals with up to 49 beds, to 2.1 hours in larger community hospitals with 200 or more beds, to 2.3 hours in teaching hospitals. (The median is the point at which half of all patients had shorter waits and half had longer waits.) For some patients in larger community and teaching hospitals, the waits were much longer. For example, 5% of these patients waited more than 24 hours for acute care beds, compared to about 1% of patients in small hospitals.