Aging

U of T wins four new Canada Research Chairs

Sub-title: 
Fourteen researchers receive renewals
Author: 
Jenny Hall
Picture: 
Joyce Poon

How much power does your computer use? If you unplugged it, you probably wouldn’t notice a difference in your hydro bills. But did you know that massive data centres that store lots of the data you access with your computer — or your phone — are eating up billions of dollars in power every year?

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Reframing the story of Alzheimer’s disease

Sub-title: 
Literary theorist Marlene Goldman on how we narrate memory loss
Author: 
Jenny Hall
Picture: 
Professor Marlene Goldman

When we talk about Alzheimer’s disease, what kind of story are we telling?

A horror story, at least here in contemporary North America, says Marlene Goldman.

“The media’s take on Alzheimer’s is very Gothic and apocaplytic,” she says, a story of the slow loss of mind and self. “The typical presentation is: we have a huge baby boomer population and they’ll be turning 65. In the media’s view, they’ll be zombies.  And we’ll have to pay for them.”

Posted Tuesday, November 29, 2011

For those with dementia, personhood persists

Sub-title: 
Pia Kontos is changing the rules of care
Author: 
Jenny Hall
Picture: 
Professor Pia Kontos

The scene: a long-term care home that serves elderly residents with dementia. It’s lunchtime. A resident is wheeled to the table in a wheelchair. She can’t speak, feed, or  dress herself. Her caregivers fasten a bib around her neck.

Conventional wisdom suggests that this woman has lost touch with her world. Her disease has robbed her of her personhood.

Posted Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Baycrest’s amazing Virtual Brain

Sub-title: 
Randy McIntosh is helping us understand the mysteries inside our heads
Author: 
Jenny Hall
Picture: 
Brain image digitalbob8, flickr.com

Randy McIntosh’s brain isn’t very smart. It’s about as astute as your average three-year-old. But it’s getting smarter every day.

Housed in a supercomputing data centre, this “brain” is actually a model created by the Brain Network Recovery Group (Brain NRG), a consortium of 16 universities. McIntosh, a psychology professor at U of T, vice-president of research at Baycrest and director of Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute, helped found Brain NRG.

Posted Monday, November 28, 2011

e-Reading with Grandma

Sub-title: 
And other cool innovations from the amazing minds at TAGlab
Author: 
Paul Fraumeni
Picture: 
Ron Baecker with graduate student researchers

Facebook, Twitter, e-readers, video games, and the seemingly endless “next generations” of smartphones.

Aside from the positive impact of social media on the retail sector and job creation, is all this e-stuff really necessary? Has the social media revolution really made life better?

That debate is still ongoing.

Posted Monday, November 28, 2011

Nearly half of Ontario seniors do not see dentists regularly: study

Sub-title: 
Poor oral health tied to chronic disease and worse overall health

Forty‐five per cent of Ontarians 65 years and older did not see a dentist in the last year, increasing their risk of chronic diseases and a reduced quality of life, a study by researchers at the University of Toronto, St. Michael’s Hospital, Women’s College Hospital and the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences (ICES) shows.

Posted Tuesday, November 22, 2011

This House Knows When You Need Help

Sub-title: 
Lab design simulates problems aging adults face at home
Author: 
Kelly Rankin
Picture: 
Professor Alex Mihailidis

Located on the 12th floor of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-University Health Network is a new home.
 
Actually, it’s HomeLab, a fully functioning one bedroom, single-storey smart home testing site.
 
The lab’s director, Alex Mihailidis, is a professor in occupational science and occupational therapy and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. He said HomeLab was built to develop and test new tools that will help aging adults overcome the challenges they face in their own homes.

Posted Tuesday, November 22, 2011
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