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Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- General
- Globe and Mail
For Alice Kearns, running was an expression of joy and resilience
Alice Kearns: Runner. HR leader. Mother. Mentor. Born Jan. 22, 1942, in Dublin; died April 21, 2025, in Ottawa, of complications from Norovirus; aged 83. Alice Kearns crossed her final finish line the day the Boston Marathon was run. It was a poetic departure for a woman who qualified for the race an astonishing 16 times and competed in it three times. She died at 2:05 p.m. – uncannily close to this year's winning race time of 2:04:45. For her family, it was a quiet, symbolic close to a life lived with spirit and relentless motion. Born Alice Heaney in Dublin to blind parents, she learned resilience and independence early. One of her favourite stories was about her father bringing home a roast from the butcher, only to discover it was mostly fat. Her childhood was shaped by hardship, but also by determination. Alice, a gifted student, had to put her education on hold to support her family. She later resumed her studies in Canada, completing a joint program between the transportation industry and the University of Toronto. Like many from Ireland seeking a better life, she immigrated to Canada in 1967, settling in Toronto. She met Jack Kearns at a Dublin dance hall in her early 20s. Just months earlier, Jack had made a life-altering decision: to leave the seminary after years of training to become a Catholic priest. Instead, he began retraining as an optician. That choice, that dance, changed everything. It was the beginning of a partnership that would last more than 60 years. They championed each other's ambitions, raised a son, Alan, and found their shared rhythm not just in marriage, but on the roads and trails where they trained side by side. Running became a metaphor for their life together: steady and always in stride. Alice built her career in the offices of the male-dominated transportation industry. She was known for her wise counsel, quiet strength and no-nonsense standards. She became a trusted administrative and HR advisor to executives. As a working mother in the 1970s and '80s, Alice faced challenges she would later reflect on honestly. 'I don't think I could be both a great mother and a great employee,' she once told her son. 'It might have been easier to choose one.' But she led by example. Her legacy was less about lunches packed or school pickups, and more about what it meant to live with conviction. She modelled excellence, persistence, intellectual curiosity and integrity. Running became her spiritual practice. She joined the Markham Centaurs and the Running Room, where she found her second family. Her mornings began with long runs and ended with bagels and coffee in the company of her running tribe. From her 40s onward, she regularly ranked near the top in her age group across 5ks, 10ks, half and full marathons. She and Jack travelled the world to combine racing and exploring – Dublin, Iceland, Chicago, China, Greece. Races were expressions of joy and resilience. Even a serious accident in her late 60s didn't stop her. Though her stride slowed, her spirit never did. Running remained, for her, an act of connection between people, places and the inner voice that said 'keep going.' She could be candid, strong-willed and fiercely loyal. Her friendships were long and deeply rooted. Her conversations were unfiltered and honest. During her final weeks in palliative care, her two grandchildren, Aidan and Aine, sat by her bedside, asking life's big questions and soaking up her presence. Just a week before she died, Aine completed a half-marathon. She called her grandmother right after the finish line. Alice told her, 'It's not about the time you get – it's about taking in the moments you have while you're in the race.' That was Alice in a sentence. Alice died of complications from Norovirus. It was a short journey from diagnosis to death – unwelcome and fast – but also mercifully gentle. 'I was in a hard race,' she reflected in her final days. 'I told myself I wanted to finish it – just for me.' Alan Kearns is Alice Kearns's son. To submit a Lives Lived: lives@ Lives Lived celebrates the everyday, extraordinary, unheralded lives of Canadians who have recently passed. To learn how to share the story of a family member or friend, go online to
CTV News
17-07-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Canada's Constitution one of the most difficult to amend in the world: professor
Watch University of Toronto professor David Schneiderman discusses the complex process of amending Canada's constitution, and what Alberta would hope to achieve.
Medscape
14-07-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Are Opioid Agonist Treatments Effective in the Fentanyl Era?
Opioid agonist treatments (OATs) such as methadone and buprenorphine-naloxone are standard therapy for opioid use disorder, but treatment duration is decreasing as fentanyl becomes more prevalent in the illicit opioid supply. Given that retention in OAT is a core measurement of treatment effectiveness, the finding underscores the urgent need for research and policy changes, according to a population-based, retrospective cohort analysis from Ontario. Illicit opioids in Canada now contain more fentanyl than before. In 2022, almost 70% of opioid samples submitted for analysis in Canada contained fentanyl or fentanyl analogs. 'Fentanyl is substantially more potent than the prescription opioids and heroin that were previously most commonly used, and the fentanyl available today often has other substances mixed in,' study author Robert Kleinman, MD, told Medscape Medical News. 'We were interested in investigating these changes because many patients report that methadone and buprenorphine-naloxone are not as effective for them as they were before the fentanyl era.' Kleinman is a scientist at the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research within the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Toronto. The article was published online on July 1 in JAMA Network Open . Differences by Treatment The researchers compared the duration of methadone and buprenorphine-naloxone treatment during 2014-2016 (before fentanyl was common), 2017-2019 (as fentanyl was becoming more common), and 2020-2022 (the 'fentanyl era'). The population included 72,717 patients who were at least 15 years old and who began OAT during those periods. A total of 45,256 (62.2%) participants were men, and the population's median age was 35 years. In all, 34,538 patients (47.5%) received methadone, and 38,179 (52.5%) received buprenorphine-naloxone. Administrative data were obtained from ICES, an independent nonprofit research institute in Ontario. The data contained demographic information, as well as information about outpatient methadone and buprenorphine-naloxone dispensation, including dispensing dates and number of take-home doses supplied. The median duration for methadone use was 193 days in the 2014 to 2016 period, dropping to 86 days in 2020 to 2022. Patients who started methadone in later periods were more likely to stop treatment sooner. The risk for stopping methadone was higher among patients whose treatment was initiated in 2017-2019 (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.18; P < .001) and yet higher for those who started in 2020-2022 (aHR, 1.45; P < .001). Buprenorphine-naloxone treatment duration decreased from 51 days during 2014-2016 to 38 days during 2020-2022. Patients who initiated buprenorphine-naloxone during 2020-2022 had a higher risk for discontinuation (aHR, 1.11; P < .001). It was unclear why methadone treatment duration decreased more prominently than did buprenorphine-naloxone treatment, according to the researchers. Treatment was more likely to be discontinued early among younger individuals, particularly those aged 15-24 years. Other factors associated with early discontinuation included rurality, lower neighborhood income, and comorbidities. 'Opioid agonist treatments remain the most effective treatments for opioid use disorder, including for people using fentanyl,' Kleinman said. 'However, this study suggests that the effectiveness of the treatments may be lower than they were in the past. There are new approaches to providing these that either have been or are being developed, and research is continuing to evaluate these approaches among patients using fentanyl.' 'Compelling Data' One of the study's limitations was that its source of data does not capture OAT dispensed in hospitals, long-term care homes, or prisons. Also, since the information was obtained through ICES databases, individuals who began OAT outside Ontario were not included in the analysis. Other individuals, such as members of the Indigenous population, may receive OAT through federal benefits and would also be excluded from the analysis. Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News , addiction medicine specialist Ryan Marino, MD, associate professor at the CWRU School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, said, 'These researchers have compelling data to show that there has been a significant decrease in the duration of time people are in treatment. I think the biggest takeaway is that we should really be wondering why. '[This] isn't something that anyone was expecting to see, at least such a dramatic difference. Hopefully this will promote more investigation.' The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Discovery Fund, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Foundation, the Rangerman RAPID Lab, and the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry Academic Scholar Award funded this study. Kleinman and Marino reported having no relevant financial relationships.
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Scientists Identify a Trait in Speech That Foreshadows Cognitive Decline
Early signs of Alzheimer's disease may be hidden in the way a person speaks, but it's not yet clear which details of our diction are most critical for diagnosis. A study from 2023 suggests that as we age, how we say something may matter more than what we say. Researchers at the University of Toronto think the pace of everyday speech may be a better indicator of cognitive decline than difficulty finding a word. Lethologica, also known as 'tip of the tongue' phenomenon, is experienced by young and old alike. But as we grow older, finding the name for things can become more challenging, especially over the age of 60. To explore why that is, researchers at the University of Toronto asked 125 healthy adults, between the ages of 18 and 90, to describe a scene in detail. Related: Next, the participants were shown pictures of everyday objects while listening to audio that was designed to confirm or confuse them. For instance, if participants were shown a picture of a broom, the audio might say 'groom', which helps them recall the word through rhyme. But on the flip side, the audio might also offer a related word like 'mop', which can lead the brain astray, momentarily. The faster a person's natural speech in the first task, the more quickly they came up with answers in the second task. The findings align with the 'processing speed theory', which argues that a general slowdown in cognitive processing lies at the very center of cognitive decline, not a slowdown in memory centers specifically. "It is clear that older adults are significantly slower than younger adults in completing various cognitive tasks, including word-production tasks such as picture naming, answering questions, or reading written words," explained a team led by University of Toronto psychologist Hsi T. Wei. "In natural speech, older adults also tend to produce more dysfluencies such as unfilled and filled pauses (e.g., "uh" and "um") in between speech and have a generally slower speech rate." In a 2024 piece for The Conversation, dementia researcher Claire Lancaster said that the study from Toronto "has opened exciting doors… showing that it's not just what we say but how fast we say it that can reveal cognitive changes." Recently, some AI algorithms have even been able to predict an Alzheimer's diagnosis with an accuracy of 78.5 percent using speech patterns alone. Other studies have found that patients with more signs of amyloid plaque in their brain are 1.2 times more likely to show speech-related problems. Amyloid plaques are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. In 2024, researchers at Stanford University led a study that found longer pauses and slower speech rates were also associated with higher levels of tangled tau proteins, another hallmark of Alzheimer's. Related: "This suggests that speech changes reflect development of Alzheimer's disease pathology even in the absence of overt cognitive impairment," the authors of the study concluded. The groundwork is still being laid, but scientists are getting closer to decoding the nuances of human speech to figure out what our words are saying about our brains. The 2023 study was published in Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition. Massive 16-Year Study Links Wellbeing to Stronger Memory in Aging Your Brain's Youthfulness (or Lack of It) Could Predict How Long You Live This Foot Scan Could Stop Your Small Cut From Costing You a Limb
CBC
11-07-2025
- General
- CBC
First Nation in northern Ontario to put its cultural artifacts on display
Indigenous artifacts will be on display at a new exhibit at Sagamok Anishnawbek thanks to an ongoing project with the University of Toronto and the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation. Allen Toulouse, a historical researcher from the First Nation located along the north shore of Lake Huron, said community members have been learning to catalogue cultural artifacts discovered in the region. "We're at a point now where we think we can really tell a story with this now," he said. "And we have this exhibit coming up this week where we're finally able to share some of the artifacts from this project and put them on display here in Sagamok." Toulouse said some of the artifacts found in the area date as far back as the Woodland period, which predates first contact with European settlers and reveal a much larger village than previously thought. There are also artifacts from the Fort La Cloche fur trading post, which was established in the late 1700s and operated for about a century on shores of Lake Huron. Toulouse said the artifacts range from stone tools to musical instruments — like small mouth harps — and even pottery. "Pottery is my new favourite one. If it's something that Ojibway peoples for a while weren't even associated with," he said. Toulouse said the exhibit will also include current artisans. "We gave them an idea. We said, 'Could you do an art project based on the Fort La Cloche artifacts?'" he said. "And they have brought us some really great examples of their artwork." Toulouse said the goal with the exhibit is to help the community share its heritage. "We've held it individually, we've all hung on to it," he said. "We're all putting the story together of what Sagamok is and in a greater sense, what the local Indigenous story is."
