Itinérance, santé mentale et ergothérapie. Une expérience qui confirme d’étonnantes possibilités

Les personnes itinérantes qui souffrent de maladie mentale constituent une partie importante de la population itinérante. Elles connaissent une multitude de problèmes au niveau du rendement occupationnel et des lacunes dans les systèmes, et les politiques aggravent leur situation. Il existe de plus en plus de preuves que l'ergothérapie peut contribuer à améliorer la santé et la qualité de vie de cette population marginalisée et mal desservie. Cet article décrit le processus et les défis que pose la dispensation des services d'ergothérapie aux personnes itinérantes ayant des problèmes de santé mentale, d'abus de substances et de maladies mentales graves, en ayant recours au modèle Mesure canadienne du rendement occupationnel (MCRO). Il existe une certaine concordance entre les valeurs et les croyances de la profession d'ergothérapeute et les besoins et les questions du rendement occupationnel des personnes itinérantes. En aidant ces personnes à développer des occupations significatives, leur permettant de reprendre leur vie en main, on les rend capables de faire des changements positifs et permanents dans leur vie. Au sein de cette dynamique, il existe un grand potentiel d'apprentissage et de capacité de grandir, qu'on soit dispensateur ou bénéficiaire de services.Homelessness, mental health and occupational therapy Persons who are homeless with a mental illness constitute a significant portion of the homeless population. They have a myriad of occupational performance problems and are further compromised by systemic and political issues. There is growing evidence that occupational therapy can make a contribution to the health and quality of life of this marginalized, under served population. This paper describes the process and challenges providing occupational therapy services to persons who are homeless with mental health problems, addictions, and serious mental illnesses using the Canadian Model of Occupational Performance. There is a goodness of fit between the values and beliefs of the occupational therapy profession and the needs and occupational performance issues of persons who are homeless. Through helping people to develop meaningful occupations and gain control of their lives, people may be able to make permanent and positive changes in their lives. Within this dynamic is a great deal of potential learning and growth for human beings regardless if they are providers or recipients of service.Itinerancia, salud mental y ergoterapia Una experiencia que confirma posibilidades asombrosas Las personas itinerantes que sufren de enfermedad mental constituyen una parte importante de esta población. Estas conocen una multitud de problemas a nivel del rendimiento ocupacional, y las lagunas en los sistemas y las políticas agravan su situación. Cada vez más, exiten pruebas de que la ergoterapia puede contribuir a mejorar la salud y la calidad de vida de esta población marginada y mal atendida. Este artículo describe el proceso y los desafíos que impone el dispensar servicios de ergoterapia a las personas itinerantes con problemas de salud mental, de abuso de sustancias y de enfermedades mentales graves, recurriendo al modelo canadiense de rendimiento ocupacional (MCRO). Existe cierta concordancia entre los valores y las creencias de la profesión de ergoterapeuta y las necesidades y cuestiones del rendimiento ocupacional de las personas itinerantes. Ayudando a estas personas a desarrollar ocupaciones significativas que les permitan retomar las riendas de su vida, las volvemos capaces de operar cambios positivos y permanentes en sus vidas. En el seno de esta dinámica existe un gran potencial de aprendizaje y de capacidad de crecer, ya se sea dispensador o beneficiario de servicios

Animal Tracks Urban Communities Action Pack

This guide includes Discovery, Awareness, Action and Appendices

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities: A Global Assessment

Urbanization is a global phenomenon and the book emphasizes that this is not just a social-technological process. It is also a social-ecological process where cities are places for nature, and where cities also are dependent on, and have impacts on, the biosphere at different scales from local to global. The book is a global assessment and delivers four main conclusions: Urban areas are expanding faster than urban populations. Half the increase in urban land across the world over the next 20 years will occur in Asia, with the most extensive change expected to take place in India and China Urban areas modify their local and regional climate through the urban heat island effect and by altering precipitation patterns, which together will have significant impacts on net primary production, ecosystem health, and biodiversity Urban expansion will heavily draw on natural resources, including water, on a global scale, and will often consume prime agricultural land, with knock-on effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services elsewhere Future urban expansion will often occur in areas where the capacity for formal governance is restricted, which will constrain the protection of biodiversity and management of ecosystem service

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities: A Global Assessment

Urban Ecology; Urbanism; Sustainable Development; Complex Systems; Science, general; International Environmental La

The effect of aromatherapy massage with music on the stress and anxiety levels of emergency nurses

Introduction: Emergency department staff are subject to significant stressors during their work. Recent studies have provided links between high levels of stress and sick leave. Nurses who work in emergency and intensive care units and new graduates suffer from high levels of stress. This research evaluated the use of aromatherapy massage and music as an intervention to decrease the occupational stress and anxiety levels of emergency nurses. Methods: The study used a one group pretest-posttest, quasi-experimental design with random assignment. The degree of perceived occupational stress was assessed pre and post 12 weeks of aromatherapy massage and music. Anxiety levels were measured pre and post each massage session. The number of sick leave was also measured. Results: The findings indicate that aromatherapy massage and music significantly reduced anxiety levels. Although occupational stress levels were high in relation to workload there was no significant difference following the 12-week period of the intervention. Discussion: The use of a simple and time effective on-site stress reduction strategy significantly reduced nurses' anxiety levels. Regular on-site aromatherapy massage with music has the potential to increase the job satisfaction of the staff and decrease the number of sick leave. Further research examining the result of regular on site massage would be useful in determining long-term effects

Hypothesis-driven genome-wide association studies provide novel insights into genetics of reading disabilities

Funding: Support for the Toronto project was provided by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-133440 and PJT-180419). K.P. was supported by the Hospital for Sick Children Research Training Program. E.E. and S.E.F. are supported by the Max Planck Society.Reading Disability (RD) is often characterized by difficulties in the phonology of the language. While the molecular mechanisms underlying it are largely undetermined, loci are being revealed by genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In a previous GWAS for word reading (Price, 2020), we observed that top single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were located near to or in genes involved in neuronal migration/axon guidance (NM/AG) or loci implicated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A prominent theory of RD etiology posits that it involves disturbed neuronal migration, while potential links between RD-ASD have not been extensively investigated. To improve power to identify associated loci, we up-weighted variants involved in NM/AG or ASD, separately, and performed a new Hypothesis-Driven (HD)–GWAS. The approach was applied to a Toronto RD sample and a meta-analysis of the GenLang Consortium. For the Toronto sample (n = 624), no SNPs reached significance; however, by gene-set analysis, the joint contribution of ASD-related genes passed the threshold (p~1.45 × 10–2, threshold = 2.5 × 10–2). For the GenLang Cohort (n = 26,558), SNPs in DOCK7 and CDH4 showed significant association for the NM/AG hypothesis (sFDR q = 1.02 × 10–2). To make the GenLang dataset more similar to Toronto, we repeated the analysis restricting to samples selected for reading/language deficits (n = 4152). In this GenLang selected subset, we found significant association for a locus intergenic between BTG3-C21orf91 for both hypotheses (sFDR q < 9.00 × 10–4). This study contributes candidate loci to the genetics of word reading. Data also suggest that, although different variants may be involved, alleles implicated in ASD risk may be found in the same genes as those implicated in word reading. This finding is limited to the Toronto sample suggesting that ascertainment influences genetic associations.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Feasibility of trial procedures for a randomised controlled trial of a community based group exercise intervention for falls prevention for visually impaired older people: the VIOLET study

Background Visually impaired older people (VIOP) have a higher risk of falling than their sighted peers, and are likely to avoid physical activity. The aim was to adapt the existing Falls Management Exercise (FaME) programme for VIOP, delivered in the community, and to investigate the feasibility of conducting a definitive randomised controlled trial (RCT) of this adapted intervention. Methods Two-centre randomised mixed methods pilot trial and economic evaluation of the adapted group-based FaME programme for VIOP versus usual care. A one hour exercise programme ran weekly over 12 weeks at the study sites (Newcastle and Glasgow), delivered by third sector (voluntary and community) organisations. Participants were advised to exercise at home for an additional two hours over the week. Those randomised to the usual activities group received no intervention. Outcome measures were completed at baseline, 12 and 24 weeks. The potential primary outcome was the Short Form Falls Efficacy Scale – International (SFES-I). Participants’ adherence was assessed by reviewing attendance records and self-reported compliance to the home exercises. Adherence with the course content (fidelity) by instructors was assessed by a researcher. Adverse events were collected in a weekly phone call. Results Eighteen participants, drawn from community-living VIOP were screened; 68 met the inclusion criteria; 64 participants were randomised with 33 allocated to the intervention and 31 to the usual activities arm. 94% of participants provided data at the 12 week visit and 92% at 24 weeks. Adherence was high. The intervention was found to be safe with 76% attending nine or more classes. Median time for home exercise was 50 min per week. There was little or no evidence that fear of falling, balance and falls risk, physical activity, emotional, attitudinal or quality of life outcomes differed between trial arms at follow-up. Conclusions The intervention, FaME, was implemented successfully for VIOP and all progression criteria for a main trial were met. The lack of difference between groups on fear of falling was unsurprising given it was a pilot study but there may have been other contributory factors including suboptimal exercise dose and apparent low risk of falls in participants. These issues need addressing for a future trial

2017 Scientific Consensus Statement: land use impacts on the Great Barrier Reef water quality and ecosystem condition. Chapter 4: management options and their effectiveness

This chapter seeks to answer the following questions: 1. What are the values of the Great Barrier Reef? 2. How effective are better agricultural practices in improving water quality? 3. How can we improve the uptake of better agricultural practices? 4. What water quality improvement can non-agricultural land uses contribute? 5. How can Great Barrier Reef water quality improvement programs be improved? Each section summarises the currently available peer reviewed literature and comments on implications for management and research gaps. This chapter has a wider scope than previous Scientific Consensus Statements, including, for the first time, the social and governance dimensions of management and the management of non-agricultural land uses. These new sections are constrained by a lack of Great Barrier Reef–specific data and information. The relevance of information from other locations must be carefully considered. In comparison, the agricultural practice change and economics sections provide an update on material compiled as part of the 2013 Scientific Consensus Statement. This report has been confined to peer reviewed literature, which is generally published in books and journals or major reports. There is additional evidence in grey literature, such as project and program reports, that has not been included here. Each section of this chapter has been compiled by a writing team and then revised following a series of review processes

Enacting Resilience: A Performative Account of Governing for Urban Resilience

Resilience is an increasingly important urban policy discourse that has been taken up at a rapid pace. Yet there is an apparent gap between the advocacy of social-ecological resilience in scientific literature and its take-up in policy discourse on the one hand, and the demonstrated capacity to govern for resilience in practice on the other. This paper explores this gap by developing a performative account of how social-ecological resilience is dealt with in practice through case study analysis of how protection of biodiversity was negotiated in response to Melbourne’s recent metropolitan planning initiative. It is suggested that a performative account expands the possible opportunities for governing for social-ecological resilience beyond the concept’s use as a metaphor, measurement, cognitive frame or programmatic statement of adaptive management/co-management and has the potential to emerge through what has been called the everyday ‘mangle of practice’ in response to social-ecological feedback inherent to policy processes