Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations

• The groups are calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to deliver on his promise to provide permanent status and equal rights for all migrants in Canada.
• It has been twenty months since Prime Minister Trudeau gave mandate letter instructions to provide permanent resident status for undocumented people, migrant workers, students, and families.
• Hundreds of thousands of people in Canada suffer from poverty, fear, and exploitation because they are denied permanent resident status.
• The moment to act on a historic and pragmatic opportunity to better thousands of lives is now."

• She is first told it’s nothing to worry about, then, a year later, that it’s “just normal aging.” Until finally, the penny drops: “It’s Alzheimer’s.
• Dementia remains largely underdetected, even in high-income countries such as Canada where rates of undetected cases exceed 60 per cent.
• Research has shown that people with mild changes in cognition are at a greater risk of developing dementia later in life.
• Despite this, protocols for early detection are not standard in the medical community, in part because significant gaps remain in our understanding of dementia.

Dementia and an aging population

• In my research, I use advanced brain MRI methods to characterize brain health in older adults who are at high risk of developing dementia.
• The goal is to identify new biomarkers of early pathology, which could lead to improved detection methods in the future.
• The proportion of senior Canadians is growing in our population.
• Dementia is strongly associated with aging, so the number of Canadians diagnosed with dementia — including Alzheimer’s — is expected to rise considerably in the next few decades, reaching an expected 1.7 million Canadians by 2050.

Lifestyle and brain health

• By making dementia risk assessment a part of routine medical visits for older adults, those who are most at risk could be identified and counselled on how to maintain brain health and cognition.
• At-risk individuals likely need those interventions the most (potentially a combination of pharmaceutical and lifestyle interventions), but anyone can benefit from adopting healthy lifestyle habits, which are known to protect from diseases not only of the brain, but also of the heart and other organs.
• Some evidence also suggests that a Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes high consumption of plants (especially leafy greens) while reducing saturated fats and meat intake, is also beneficial for brain health.

Barriers to healthy lifestyles

• Policy changes could address these inequalities not only by promoting healthy lifestyles, but also by taking action to improve the circumstances in which people of these communities live.
• Examples include improving access to sport centres or prevention clinics for people with lower incomes and designing cities that are conducive to active lifestyles.
• Governments need to evaluate and address the barriers that prevent people from specific groups from adopting healthy lifestyle habits.

• The demand for social workers is increasing, and the barriers to clinical licensure are negatively impacting the supply.
• The healthcare industry is simultaneously turning to social care as an integral tool in addressing social needs, behavioral health and other psychosocial barriers – increasing the demand for social care workers even further.
• This peer-to-peer collaboration combined with the upskilling of social workers across the health system directly supports CommonSpirit Health’s goal of addressing social determinants of health (SDoH) and improving continuity of care.
• To learn more about the social work fellowship program, visit our website or connect with an enrollment advisor at [email protected] .

• Pain Insights, Inc. announces a comprehensive market research study conducted among 1,147 sufferers of recurrent and chronic pain.
• Reactions were also obtained to changes that could be made in updates to the 2016 CDC "Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain."
• The internet-based survey was completed in September 2022 by 1,147 patients suffering from recurrent or chronic pain.
• - The findings will lend insights into: patient engagement activities, patient-reported outcomes (PROs), pain in vulnerable populations, new product development, educational initiatives, legislative actions, and strategic planning strategies.