Blogs

But imagine a check-up with a different kind of prescription: Walk briskly; do some push-ups and lunges. Repeat.

It’s called an exercise prescription. “It’s very similar to any prescription. It’s a specific dose of exercise, individualized to the patient and signed off by the doctor,” says Dr. Robert Petrella, assistant director of the Lawson Health Research Institute and a University of Western Ontario professor who holds chairs in aging and health.

Gateway and Lawson still looking for more participants in year-long study

When Janet Boot, of RR 4 Clinton, decided to join a joint study by Gateway Rural Health Research Institute and the Lawson Research Institute, she thought she was in pretty good shape.

Posted By Susan Hundertmark
Seaforth Expositor April 21, 2010

In the first of a number of planned meetings aimed at various groups, Gateway Rural Health Research Institute had three messages for the residents of the Bridges of Seaforth last week – volunteers are needed to participate in health studies, volunteers are needed to lick stamps and stuff envelopes for an upcoming marketing campaign and donors are needed to provide funds for the research institute.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation's 2010 Annual Report on Canadians' Health warns that a "perfect storm" of risk factors and demographic changes are converging to create an unprecedented burden on Canada's fragmented system of cardiovascular care, and no Canadian - young or old - will be left unaffected. Adding to the perfect storm, troubling disparities persist between provinces and territories.

For well over two decades there have been dire warnings of a looming crisis in the health care system due to the exponential increase in the ageing population, the burden of chronic disease and significant workforce shortages. In rural areas, we are now seeing the beginnings of catastrophic health workforce shortages that without action will cripple the health care system.  Read more

The Canadian Health care system as compared to the US by Uwe Reinhardt, a leading adviser on health care economics and professor of political economy at Princeton University read more ....

An essay by Micheal Pollan in the New York Times - Fascinating view on the state of food ... read more (long - 12 pages)

Rural people were once better off in terms of physical activity, nutrition and weight than urbanites.

However, according to a recent report released by the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, rural residents now fare worse than their urban counterparts in regard to obesity rates — the opposite of what existed prior to 1980. For more ....

Cameras from A Channel TV news were rolling as Rob Petrella and his team demonstrated the data gathering technology which will be tested in the newly lauched pilot project . Gateway board and staff were given insight into the potential for addressing the need for lifestyle modification as the first line of attack on type B diabetes and other ĺifetyle driven illnesses in our community.