Outreach and Events

Wednesday, September 27th, 2023
4:00 – 5:30 pm

Dementia-friendly communities (DFCs) aim to foster a supportive, inclusive and empowering environment that promotes equal rights and resources for people living with dementia and their care partners. Central to DFCs is promoting access and navigation of outdoor spaces and destinations in the neighbourhood. The “Dementia-inclusive Spaces for Community Access, Participation, and Engagement (DemSCAPE)” study aims to identify spatial and temporal patterns in activities undertaken outside home by people living with dementia, and ways in which the neighbourhood built-environment affects their outdoor mobility and social participation.

Speakers:

Habib Chaudhury, Chair and Professor in the Department of Gerontology, Simon Fraser University conducts research in the following areas: role of physical environment for people with dementia in long-term care facilities, community planning and urban design for active aging, and dementia friendly/inclusive communities. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Aging and Environment, and member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Aging Advisory Board and the Federal Ministerial Advisory Board on Dementia.

Kishore Seetharaman is a PhD candidate in the Department of Gerontology, at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He has a background in architecture and environmental psychology. His areas of scholarship include environment, aging, disability, and design. His current research is on dementia and neighbourhoods, using qualitative visual research methods to explore the role of the outdoor environment in shaping the mobility of people living with dementia and their care partners.

Cari Randa-Beaulieu is an MA candidate in the Department of Gerontology at Simon Fraser University and DemSCAPE Project Manager. Through her previous experience as an art therapist and program coordinator in long-term care, Cari has honed her skills for connecting with diverse collaborators in community, health care, and academic settings. In her role as DemSCAPE project manager, Cari has developed an interest in community-engaged research and knowledge mobilization.

To RSVP and for the ZOOM link - please email: msakamoto@uvic.ca

See the event poster here.

October 4, 2023, 10:00 – 11:00 am, via Zoom

Nearly 50% of the US population has a chronic condition and 21%, mostly elderly, have multiple chronic conditions. Chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart failure or depression decrease quality of life and increase risk of hospitalization. Early recognition of chronic conditions could improve quality of life and reduce the cost of healthcare. Various in-home monitoring technologies based on sensors such as depth, infrared, sound, motion or balisto/seismo cardiography could provide invaluable clinical information. However, to become clinically relevant, sensor data requires not only insight in the evolution of a certain disease but also advanced knowledge of machine learning. In this seminar, which is co-hosted by the School of Health Information Science and IALH’s Digital Health Research Cluster, Dr. Mihail Popescu, a professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Missouri School of Medicine at Columbia will discuss several examples of clinical applications of in-home sensors developed at the Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technologies (CERT). Most of this research has been performed in an aging in place context.

The link to join is:

https://uvic.zoom.us/j/85206968134?pwd=eDJiOUlGWStqOFhBaUF5M0N2ckN5dz09.

Meeting ID: 852 0696 8134
Password: 936932

Wednesday, October 11, 2023  9:00 AM - 4:30 PM (PDT)

Online Via Zoom

Presented by the Health Services & Systems and Populations & Health Research Clusters at the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health, this mini-conference will:

• Examine what constitutes health data in the Canadian context as well as how the data are collected, stored, and used;
• Highlight some of the data that are currently available in Canada related to health and aging; and
• Explore how the data can be accessed for research purposes.

Presentations:

Presented by Kimberlyn McGrail, Scientific Director, Health Data Research Network Canada; Expert Advisory Group Member, Pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy

Presented by Joanne Kirton, Lead, Data Access Research and Development, Population Data BC

Presented by Dinki Thakkar, Program Director, Health Data Platform BC, Ministry of Health

Presented by Parveen Bhatti, Distinguished Scientist, BC Cancer Research Institute; Scientific Director, BC Generations Project and Sheraz Cheema, Data Manager, CanPath National Coordinating Centre

Presented by Theone Paterson, Local Site Principal Investigator, Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), University of Victoria Site

Presented by Zahra Premji, Health Research Librarian, University of Victoria; Daniel Brendle-Moczuk, Geospatial, Statistics Canada, and Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Data Librarian, University of Victoria; and Herbert Schuetze, Director, Statistics Canada Research Data Centre, University of Victoria

See the full program of speakers and discussions.

Register online at https://tinyurl.com/Data4HealthResearch

Autonomy, the Internet, and End-of-Life: How People Facing Death and Bereavement Resist the Medicalisation of Dying and Grief Through Online Forums

Wednesday, October 11, 2023  1:30 - 2:30 PM (Pacific Time)

Online Via Zoom

Presented by Dr. Kelli Stajduhar and the Palliative Approaches to Care in Aging and Community Health team. 

Guest Speaker: Shaun Peter Qureshi, MD

Shaun Peter Qureshi is a Scottish palliative care physician, educator, and researcher. He is a research fellow at the Centre for the Art of Dying Well, St Mary’s University, London. As a UK Churchill Fellow, Shaun is working towards improved palliative care for marginalised patient groups in the UK through researching equitable models of palliative care for structurally vulnerable patients.

No registration required. The Zoom link to join is https://uvic.zoom.us/j/86443579870 

For questions about this event, please contact palliative_approaches@uvic.ca. 

See the event poster. 

Self-Management BC is excited to offer in-person sessions again! Put life back into your life.  

Free 6-Session workshops for adults with any ongoing health conditions

• Learn techniques to better manage your health
• Set goals and problem solve
• Communicate more effectively with your family,friends, and health care team
• Deal with stress and difficult emotions
• Take action and live a healthier life
• Family members and friends welcome!

In addition to our 6-week Self-Management Workshops, we offer the following:

• Self-Management Health Coach Program: This is a one-on-one telephone-based coaching program to support people living with chronic conditions to become better self-managers. Each individual is paired with a coach and receives a weekly, 30-minute phone call for a period of 3 months. Coaches are volunteers who may be living with chronic health conditions, and are passionate to help others to achieve wellness. For more information, please visit: selfmanagementbc.ca/healthcoachprogram
• Better Choices, Better Health® Online Program: This workshop takes place entirely online. Participants can participate using any computer with an Internet connection, even a dial-up connection. With up to 25 people in each workshop group, interactive sessions are posted each week for six weeks. Participants log on at their convenience two or three times a week for a total of about two hours a week. Participants can remain anonymous and everything takes place on a dedicated, secure website. Participants set their own goals and make a step-by-step action plan to help them feel better and achieve their goals. 

See the schedule of workshops happening for Fall 2023 here.

To see workshop schedules in other regions of British Columbia, visit https://www.selfmanagementbc.ca/CommunityPrograms 

Many programs can be done online, by telephone, or independently. For more information please visit www.selfmanagementbc.ca or call TOLL FREE: 1-866-902-3767