Computer software is transforming much of the medical world. When it comes to computerized testing of brain health, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientist Dr. Julie Robillard says software designers need to do a better job of putting the emotional needs of patients first.
Doctors at Vancouver Coastal Health have teamed up with patients and a local poet to improve mental health care using the power of poetry.
The groundbreaking initiative, called the Depression Project, resulted in a book of poems titled “Oh Not So Great”. The team of researchers behind the project, including Dr. Josephine Lee, a general practitioner from Richmond General Hospital, will use the poetry collection to aid in enhancing empathy towards patients with depression.
Supportive and collaborative research brings benefits to the entire health care system. Through the Team Grant, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) is proud to support research mentorships that enable VCH staff and clinicians to exchange knowledge and build relationships with experienced researchers. These grants support collaboration between research mentors and VCH health care providers on applied research projects and improving health care providers’ practices.
We are taught since childhood to eat our fruits and vegetables on a daily basis, and while many of us find it challenging to stick to that rule of thumb, others excel. To better understand why, Anne Swann, a Vancouver Coastal Health registered public health dietitian in Richmond, analyzed how the distance people in Richmond live from healthy and less healthy food sources can be linked to their eating habits.
Future health care needs require visionary approaches to tackle the challenges confronting patients and their families today. From curing disease to improving quality of life, researchers are at the forefront of medical advances that support the health and happiness of patients and their families. For this reason, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) is proud to contribute to groundbreaking research with our annual Innovation and Translational Research Awards.
Inside the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH), a clinician peers through a microscope. She is looking at a thin slice from a block of paraffin wax embedded with tissue samples, searching for clues to cure disease. VGH neuropathologist and VCHRI researcher Dr. Stephen Yip calls this the analogue version of histology—the study of the structure of tissues at the microscopic level. Research he and colleagues are conducting is paving the way for histology 2.0 in the age of digital technology.
Endometriosis— a condition in which tissue that normally lines the uterus grows in other parts of the body—affects ten per cent of Canadian women of reproductive age and is associated with pain and infertility. That’s approximately a million Canadians. But endometriosis can go undiagnosed for years, while its debilitating symptoms cost $2 billion annually in lost productivity and health care expenses.
Eight mostly senior men and women are balancing on one leg as smiles and looks of concentration cross their faces. They are part of a three-month Fitness And Mobility Exercise (FAME) program for people who have experienced stroke. Under the guidance of trained instructors, FAME develops participants’ physical and mental well-being in a group setting. The West Vancouver Community Centre program is also an implementation study led by Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) researcher Dr.
Q: My father is much less active than he used to be. Is this normal?
A: Unfortunately, it is the norm. Only 11% of older men meet the daily requirements for exercise. But the trend starts even earlier: by age 40, men’s exercise rates decrease by about 50 per cent. That is quite dramatic and sobering. Further, across all ages, only 17 per cent of men are meeting recommended physical activity guidelines. It’s better than women’s rates of 13 per cent, but still far from adequate.
