We have a new website released this week.
This new site – http://www.ikebarberlearningcentre.ubc.ca/ features a number of novel initiatives such as online movie tutorials on Google and Healia, learning centre webcasts, an archive of the stories we do for myTelus Health project, etc.
Please take a look 🙂
Here is a short article from The Engineer Online that discusses a robotic system that mimics the action of trained physiotherapists.
“The robotic system evolved from a project to develop an exoskeleton to help people who had lost the use of their legs regain mobility, said David Bradley of the School of Computing and Creative Technologies at the University of Abertay Dundee. ‘It was intended to go in parallel with the existing limb but would provide some of the strength to allow it to move.'”
Take a look – here is the full text.
** photo by Natascha2007 , used under Creative Commons from Flickr
Here is an interesting article from BMJ (it is almost two years old – but still relevant) – BMJ 2005;330:189-191
It states: “Regular physical activity brings important health benefits at any age. Its importance for health in old age is highlighted repeatedly in the English national service framework for older people. Any potential hazards can be reduced by education and guidance of participants.”
See the full text here
* photo courtesy – sparkle glowplug
The group has a new newsletter to share with the broader community – Newsletter Vol.3 Issue 1 is now available on their website.
Personally, I liked the short piece on “The Amygdala and Pain”.
The Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Sciences Group (CPPSG) is a non-profit group of like-minded Physiotherapists in Canada who share a passion for understanding and managing pain and pain-related disability.
* Photo courtesy – peter bowers
Some time ago, I played with the trial version of Captivate software to create a quick guide about using Google to locate reliable health information.
This tutorial is also a part of the educational suite of tutorials that we will release soon with our new website (with Consumer Health component).
Here is the end result. It is possible to view the tutorial in two different ways:
1. Download it to your machine as a stand-alone version. The tutorial is approx. 4MB and will run itself if you double-click on it. Here is the link. Personally, I would actually prefer this option, since you save the tutorial for any future reference on your machine.
2. Run it in a browser window – any browser should work. Here is the link. The tutorial will open a new browser window and will run automatically.
Please let me know your thoughts and remarks about this short (12 min.) tutorial. Was it helpful? Too long? Too short?
Yesterday, I was one of the panelists at the latest UBC webloggers salon, which was very interesting indeed with profs from Education and Latin American Studies departments dealing with interesting angles of blogging. I was stuck with the technicalities – as usual 🙂
Here is my presentation I did for the UBC audience.
Here is an interesting audiocast we recorded last week. Wendy Hall from the UBC School of Nursing is discussing Evidence Based Practice from the Qualitative perspective.
As usual, you can access all UBC Barber Learning Centre audiocasts this way:
1. Go to https://dspace.library.ubc.ca
2. Click on “Library” link under “Communities in DSpace”
3. Click on “The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre” link
4. You will see a small search box. Click on “Titles” button to list all files by titles or “Authors” file to list all files by their authors
5. When opening a particular record, just click on the relevant link to listen to an audiocast and view the presentations in PDF format.
Here is an interesting story from the Hospital for Sick Children about a multidisciplinary team in Canada dedicated to the treatment and research of intestinal failure in children.
Patients with intestinal failure lack a significant portion of their bowels often fail to thrive and require a complex combination of treatments, including surgery, parenteral nutrition and physiotherapy. Therapies have traditionally resulted in long hospital stays, liver damage and repeat infections, having lifelong implications for health and affecting social and family life.
This program is a combination of surgical advancements, adjustments to clinical nutrition protocols and an improved integration of services have rendered some impressive breakthroughs. In neonates and infants with intestinal failure from short bowel syndrome, septic events have been minimized and the length of intensive care unit stays have decreased by 20 per cent. More children are tolerating enteral feeding. Most importantly, children experiencing liver failure are making it onto the transplant list sooner. The result has been a 36 per cent increase in the number of transplants performed and a more than 50 per cent decrease in the number of deaths from liver failure (22 per cent to 11 per cent). These numbers improve every year. In 2006, no child with intestinal failure died of liver failure under the care of the GIFT program.
The physios are part of the group – way to go!
Here is a recent article from J Athl Train. 2006 Oct-Nov;41(4):466-9.
The authors (physios) have asked this clinical question – Do evidence-based interventions exist for the prevention and treatment of stress reactions and stress fractures in young active adults?
In a nutshell, the authors of this systematic review have concluded that: “Currently, no solid evidence-based interventions to prevent lower extremity stress reactions or fractures exist. Limited evidence suggests that “shock absorbing” insoles may reduce the overall incidence of lower extremity osseous injuries in military personnel. Unfortunately, research does not support the best design for inserts or footwear modifications. There is also insufficient evidence to determine if pre-performance stretching or calcium supplementation offers added protection from lower extremity osseous overuse injuries. Initial evidence supports the use of a pneumatic brace and early mobilization for the treatment of tibal stress reactions and fractures, but additional studies are required to validate these findings.”
Read the whole thing here (PDF, 60kb)
** photo credit – spidrwegian’s photo from flickr (it looks that the account is down now :). Thanks a lot for the Flickr group for pointing the copyright issue!
Here is the audiocast of the January 2007 BCRSRnet workshop on Evidence Based Practice in Rehab Sciences. The session was presented by Alison Hoens and Sandy Leznoff, both from the Providence Health Care in Vancouver, BC >>> http://hdl.handle.net/2429/97
Please note that in addition to the audio files and the PDF of the seminar, I included a VERY NICE worksheet -developed by Alison Hoens on Appraisal of a quantitative articles, which I personally found very useful.
As usual, to find all our audiocasts in one place follow the steps below:
1. Go to https://dspace.library.ubc.ca
2. Click on “Library” link under “Communities in DSpace”
3. Click on “The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre” link
4. You will see a small search box. Click on “Titles” button to list all files by titles or “Authors” file to list all files by their authors
5. When opening a particular record, just click on the relevant link to listen to an audiocast and view the presentations in PDF format.