Latest news with #OttawaHospitalResearchInstitute
Ottawa Citizen
10-07-2025
- Health
- Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa part of research initiative aiming to transform bipolar disorder care
The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute is the first international site of a research network aimed at accelerating the understanding of bipolar disorder and transforming care for people who live with it. Article content Bipolar disorder affects an estimated 40 million people around the world, including about 800,000 in Canada. In many cases, the disorder remains difficult to diagnose and treat effectively. Article content Article content Article content Dr. Jess Fiedorowicz, senior researcher and head of the department of mental health at The Ottawa Hospital, was awarded a grant worth more than $3 million to lead the first Canadian site of the Breakthrough Discoveries for Thriving with Bipolar Disorder Integrated Network (BD2) in a partnership with Brain Canada. Article content Article content The funding will support a longitudinal study of 100 participants in Ottawa, said Fiedorowicz, who hopes an additional 200 patients undergoing treatment at The Ottawa Hospital will eventually be able to participate in the study. It will include advanced brain imaging and monitoring and is part of a global study that will eventually include 4,000 patients. Article content The funding also supports a learning health network that will use data and integration to improve patient care, Fiedorowicz said. The investment in bipolar disorder is badly needed, said Pamela Kanellis, chief research and program officer with Brain Canada. Article content 'There is a dearth of funding to address bipolar disorder,' she said. Article content Kanellis noted that it took, on average, seven years for patients to get diagnosed, misdiagnoses were frequent and many people were suicidal while they waited for diagnoses and treatments. Article content 'This is a dramatic disease that we need to get ahold of better,' she said. Article content Among the key challenges are delays in diagnosing patients and difficulty finding treatments that work. Article content More than 70 per cent of people with bipolar disorder are initially misdiagnosed, health officials say, and less than half find effective treatments. Article content 'It is a challenging diagnosis, even as an expert,' Fiedorowicz said. 'One of the challenges is that bipolar disorder can present differently over time.' Article content Bipolar disorder is characterized by periods of depression and mood elevation — mania — as well as periods without marked symptoms.
USA Today
06-03-2025
- Health
- USA Today
COPD can be debilitating. What exactly is it?
COPD can be debilitating. What exactly is it? Show Caption Hide Caption Health officials warn of highest whooping cough cases in a decade The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sounding the alarm about a spike in whooping cough cases in the United States. Straight Arrow News Few situations are more unsettling than not being able to breathe. Whether from a momentary injury that knocks the wind out of you, swimming underwater for too long or recovering after sprinting at full speed, anyone who has struggled to fill their lungs with oxygen knows how scary the feeling can be. But sometimes people experience breathing troubles that are less acute yet longer lasting. Such issues may be associated with conditions like asthma, sleep apnea and cystic fibrosis. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is another of the most common breathing conditions, but it's also one of the most debilitating. What is COPD? Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, is an ongoing group of lung conditions that include chronic bronchitis and emphysema. COPD is the result of damaged lung tissue, which leads to inflammation that irritates the airway and limits airflow. Because such damage usually worsens over time, "COPD mostly affects people who are 50 or older," says Dr. Shawn Aaron, senior scientist of the inflammation and chronic disease program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada. Common symptoms of COPD include wheezing, chest tightness, a painful and persistent cough (with and without accompanying mucus) and fatigue. "Another of the most worrisome features of the disease can be periodic flare-ups - called exacerbations, which can greatly diminish your ability to breathe," explains Dr. Meilan King Han, pulmonary diseases specialist at University of Michigan Health. Due to the severity of such episodes, "some COPD patients can end up hospitalized," she says. People with COPD are also more vulnerable to respiratory infections such as pneumonia, COVID-19 and tuberculosis. Related complications are why "COPD is a leading cause of death both in America and worldwide," says Dr. David Mannino, chief medical officer at the COPD Foundation in Florida. At least 15 million adults have some form of COPD, per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but Mannino says it could be twice that number because the condition is often misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. What is sleep apnea? The sleep disorder you might have could be why you're sluggish What causes COPD? The damaged lung tissue associated with COPD is most often caused by long-term exposure to irritants such as fumes, dust, chemicals or smoke. This is why "cigarette smoke is the main cause of COPD in high-income countries like the United States," says Mannino. "However, not everyone who smokes will develop COPD symptoms, and not all people with COPD have a history of smoking." Indeed, some 25% of people with COPD have never smoked a cigarette. "Exposure to outdoor pollution or indoor cooking smoke and fumes is a major cause of COPD," says Aaron, especially in developing countries. He adds that some people also develop the condition because of poor early lung development related to premature birth. Genetic factors, early-life respiratory infections and a history of asthma "can all also contribute to the development of COPD," says Han. What to know about asthma: Nearly 1 in 10 Americans have asthma. Here's what causes it. How is COPD treated? Regardless of what's causing the condition, COPD is treatable. "The mainstays of therapy have historically been inhaled bronchodilators and inhaled steroids," says Han. Such medications can reduce breathlessness, improve stamina and lower one's risk of flare-ups, says Mannino. He adds that non-pharmacologic therapies are also helpful in reducing symptoms and risk of flare-ups. "These include participating in pulmonary rehabilitation, using oxygen therapy as prescribed and adhering to vaccination guidelines," he says. And you can't overemphasize the importance of quitting smoking, adds Aaron. "By adhering to medication recommendations, avoiding infection and irritating fumes, eating foods that support lung health and strengthening lung tissue by getting plenty of cardiovascular activity," says Mannino, "individuals with COPD can maintain a good quality of life."
CBC
19-02-2025
- Health
- CBC
'Prehab' before surgery means less time in hospital, better patient outcomes, P.E.I. researcher says
Getting better quickly after a surgery isn't just a matter of how well the procedure went. New research shows that patients, especially older adults, can significantly improve their recovery by preparing for surgery in advance. This approach is called prehabilitation, or prehab — a program that includes exercise, better nutrition, psychological support, and cognitive training to help position patients to recover faster. Dr. Daniel McIsaac, originally from Mermaid, P.E.I., is among the people leading a systematic review of prehab published last month. He works in the departments of anesthesiology and pain medicine at Ottawa Hospital. For the review, McIsaac and his co-authors at Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, McGill University in Montreal and St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto analyzed data from 15,000 patients receiving planned surgeries, as opposed to operations needed on an emergency basis. They have noticed many benefits for patients who participate in prehab programs, the University of Ottawa professor said. "We're seeing people get out of hospital a day or two sooner, which is a pretty big impact, if you think about the number of surgeries and patients going through hospitals," he told CBC's Island Morning. "Once people are getting home, they're having a better ability to walk and get around and be independent at home, and whenever we ask them about their overall quality of life, they're having really meaningful improvements in quality of life as well." Why it matters McIsaac said his interest in prehab comes from his experience as an anesthesiologist; he has seen many patients, especially older ones, struggle to recover from major surgery. He wanted to understand how more people could have successful outcomes. Preparing for surgery starts with the most important decision, he said: whether or not to proceed with the operation. He stressed the need for a thorough discussion with a surgeon about the potential benefits, risks and alternatives, calling that especially crucial for older patients with multiple health conditions. For those who choose to go ahead, the real work of prehab begins. While it seems like common sense that exercising and eating better before an operation will help, McIsaac said the stress of preparing for surgery – including attending appointments, undergoing tests and dealing with anxiety – often makes it hard for patients to change their habits on their own. This patient used 'prehab' before a surgery — and it helped keep him motivated through challenges 27 days ago Duration 1:57 Christopher Wanczycki, who took part in a prehab program of exercises before colorectal cancer surgery in 2022, says the program started with gradual exercises and levelled up — with support from a professional — over time. That's where structured prehab programs come in. "How do we get them to start exercising and keep exercising when they haven't been already? How do we get them to change their diet and get a lot more protein into it?" he said. "People need help to make these big changes as they get ready for surgery during that stressful time." McIsaac said successful prehab usually requires at least three to four weeks. Given current wait times for surgery, this actually presents an opportunity for patients to engage in prehab, he added. Integrating prehab into health-care system McIsaac hopes prehabilitation can one day become a standard part of the health-care system. Ideally, as soon as patients decide to have surgery and leave the surgeon's office, they would receive information about prehab and get enrolled in a program, he said. "Once they're in that program, they're going to need support on a fairly regular basis to check in and make sure that they're doing their exercises… Some people may need to get sent into a gym for support. Some people can do that from home," he said. "The other thing is just the nutrition, making sure they're getting about a gram to a gram and a half of protein per kilogram of body weight a day. That way, their body is going to be better set to heal after the big surgery that they're going to have." McIsaac and his team are conducting large-scale, randomized trials across Canada to further explore the impact of prehab. Their goal is to present this data to health ministers and hospital leaders to advocate for integrating prehab into standard surgical care.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New research continues to link marijuana with schizophrenia. Experts say it's not so simple
A study this week reported an association between people's medical records listing cannabis use disorder and both schizophrenia diagnoses and psychosis — but experts emphasized the data should not be used to draw causal conclusions about cannabis use and these risks. In a study published in JAMA Network Open, the authors reported that the proportion of people with a new diagnosis of schizophrenia who had cannabis use disorder listed in their record increased after cannabis was legalized in Canada. The rates of nonspecified psychosis also increased during this time among people with this label in their record, said Dr. Daniel T. Myran, the lead author and a researcher at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. 'Seven percent of people in Canada use cannabis nearly every day, and there's now more people in the United States who use cannabis every day than drink alcohol every day,' Myran told Salon in a phone interview. 'I see this as a signal that this is something that could actually become a pretty important public health concern.' Across the study period, the overall incidence of schizophrenia remained stable, and it has remained stable since the 1990s. The authors state that this 'occurred because the incidence of schizophrenia increased among younger individuals while decreasing in older adults" during the study period. Yet this is important to note considering cannabis use has significantly increased in the past decade. 'If cannabis use 'causes' schizophrenia, it is absolutely impossible that the rate of schizophrenia would not be going up with the rates of cannabis use increasing 1,000-fold,' said Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a cannabis specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. This isn't the first time a link has been reported between cannabis and psychosis. The two have been tangled up together since the 1930s with the release of the anti-cannabis propaganda film, 'Reefer Madness,' in which children used cannabis and experienced a series of hallucinations and negative side effects. As researchers began examining whether there was a link between cannabis use and psychosis and schizophrenia, the nuances involved in many of these experiments were lost. A 2017 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded: 'There is substantial evidence of a statistical association between cannabis use and the development of schizophrenia or other psychoses, with the highest risk among the most frequent users.' But many assumed a causal relationship from studies like these, which were not designed to be able to determine causal relationships. An alternate hypothesis, for example, suggests the possibility that people who are prone to schizophrenia are using cannabis because it helps treat some of their symptoms. Although some have pointed out that implying causation with this association is not possible with this kind of data, the former narrative has continued to be perpetuated in the media and scientific journals across decades.'Debates on the science of cannabis risks have always been highly politicized, characterized by subjective takes and often cherry-picked data to support different views — whether in supporting or opposing reforms like decriminalization or legalization,' said Steve Rolles, a senior policy analyst for the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. 'This problem is exemplified by the debate on cannabis and psychotic illness risks, with people able to trawl the voluminous body of research, and then amplify or ignore the findings that either support or undermine their particular position.' High-potency cannabis with THC levels above 15% can produce psychotic states that cause paranoia and hallucinations, but this is a temporary state that does not mean people will go on to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, said Dr. Muhammad Aadil, an addiction psychiatrist at the Albert Einstein Medical School in New York. However, researchers could not measure the type of cannabis and its potency in this study. 'People are just having a bad reaction because of two reasons in my opinion,' Aadil told Salon in a phone interview. 'They don't know what they are consuming and they don't know what its effects are going to be on their body.' Myran emphasized this was not a causal study and that there were several factors that could not be accounted for that could be confounding the results, like whether patients had a family history of mental health disorders. In another study also published last week, his research group also reported an association between people who had been labeled as having a cannabis use disorder on their medical record and increased mortality. Similarly, many people might be using cannabis to self-medicate for underlying conditions that could explain some of those associations — in other words, sick people at risk of death may seek out marijuana — and some important potential confounding factors, like whether patients used tobacco, were not included. Yet understanding the characteristics of these patients is crucial when making associations like this, especially because more people who were considered to have cannabis use disorder in the study had conditions like hypertension, asthma and cardiovascular disease, said Dr. Carl Hart, a researcher at Columbia University. 'That is not typically what you see in cannabis users,' Hart told Salon in a phone interview. 'I don't know who this population is, and it could be people who are just having problems, and who happen to smoke cannabis, too.' In both studies, people were listed as having a cannabis use disorder based on whether they visited the emergency department for care related to cannabis use. However, cannabis use disorder is a diagnosis that typically requires a more detailed evaluation by a health care provider than what might be performed in an emergency department, Hart said. That means some patients might have been classified as having cannabis use disorder when they did not, which the authors acknowledged in the study. 'A lot of people took too big of a gummy and had anxiety and went to the hospital, and they're calling that cannabis use disorder,' Grinspoon told Salon in a phone interview. 'If you just go by hospital spreadsheets it's completely misleading.' Research on cannabis is further behind many other areas of study because it is still federally recognized as a controlled substance. And although federal funding has increased over the years for these studies, they tend to focus more on potential harms than on cannabis' therapeutic potential. Although the Biden administration proposed moving cannabis from a Schedule I substance to Schedule III, which would remove most criminal penalties and barriers to conducting research, it has not been enacted yet. It's unclear whether the Trump administration will continue those efforts. Regardless of whether cannabis is legal or not, people will continue to use it, and educating them about safe use has been shown to be the most effective way to reduce harm. 'Criminalization and prohibition makes doing this much more difficult,' Rolles said. 'Resources are siphoned away from proven public health measures into counterproductive enforcement, and the stigma of criminalization pushes key target populations away from the very services they could most benefit from.'
