Here is a short article from Dec. 1, 2007 issue of an excellent (and free access) American Family Physician journal.
The article – “The Physical Therapy Prescription” claims that “family physicians should have some understanding of the various treatments and modalities used by physical therapists.”
An excellent overview for the docs!
Read the full text here .
** Photo by daveeedo6
Here is a short article from a recent New York Times talking about Nintendo Wii console. They cite this recent study – “Comparison of energy expenditure in adolescents when playing new generation and sedentary computer games: cross sectional study” from BMJ.
The NYT story says that: “At rest, the children expended an average of about 72 calories per hour. Playing the Xbox game increased the average to 107. Wii tennis consumed 179 calories per hour, and Wii boxing 174 — both significant increases over the Xbox game. But a game of doubles tennis in the real world used 318 calories per hour, and punching a boxing bag 382.”
My conclusions – get your kids out to exercise, do it together and enjoy this quality time with your family!!
** Photo by minter
Two weeks ago, B.C. Physiotherapist Neil Pearson presented a workshop “Overcome Pain, Live Well Again” during the Global Day Against Pain in Women on October 15, 2007.
This 3 hours education session, according to Neil’s website:
1. provides information to improve understanding of pain, chronic pain and pain self-management techniques.
2. is based on current understanding of pain science, as well as research evidence that understanding pain promotes recovery from chronic pain.
The videocast of this session is now available online via the The Canadian Pain Coalition website (divided into three parts) :
1. Part I
2. Part II
3. Part III
Note: Those files are pretty large and it might take some time for your computer to download them, depending on your connection.
** Photo by FreeWine
Canadian Society of Association Executives (BC) has recently announced their 2007 awards and guess who has won the “new program” award…
Here is a short article from Business in Vancouver (thank you for allowing us to post it here) about us winning the award.
It is a really nice article to be written about librarians, what we do, and how a medical librarian can help busy clinicians – I loved it – thanks Grant!
** Photo by Gabisa Motonia
The newest issue of Nociception? – the Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Sciences Group newsletter is online on their website now – Volume 3 Issue 5
* Photo by jgrantmac
Here is a very recent Statistics Canada compilation of data about various ethnic communities in our country.
Even though it is not directly physiotherapy related, I am assured that you will find it useful in understanding your multicultural clients 🙂
Take a look…
** Photo by kk+
Amazing! Here is a short story from BBC that mentions that: “Most UK adults are so unwilling to exercise that not even the threat of an early death is enough to get them off the sofa”
Some quotes:
Only 38% of people questioned by YouGov said they would do more exercise if their life depended on it.
And British Heart Foundation figures show only a third of people manage to do enough exercise to achieve the minimum recommended amount.
It is very interesting to read this story in Vancouver, where it seems that people exercise at least twice a day 🙂
Read the full story on the BBC site here.
** Photo by Miran Rijavec
Finally, after weeks of preparations and working on details, we are happy to announce that the Electronic Health Library of BC (eHLbc) is available to all Physiotherapy Association of British Columbia members starting with September 1st.
eHLbc is a collection of online health library resources. The purpose of the eHLbc is to support and improve practice, education, and research in the health sciences.
This is how PABC members will get access to all our resources from any computer with Internet connection (remember – this blog is public, you will need to login to PABC members only site to access eHLbc databases and full text):
1. Go to PABC website – http://www.bcphysio.org
2. Log in with your CPA username and password
3. Click on the Library Services category (third from the top on the left)
4. Click on Databases and Full Text category
5. You will see a list with all our databases and full text, click on the appropriate title to go in and start searching
6. See tips and tutorials for our resources on the Tutorials and Training page under Library Services
What is available to PABC members in this package?
1. CINAHL with Full-text: CINAHL is a database combined with full-text articles covering the fields of nursing, rehabilitation sciences, allied health, biomedicine, alternative/complementary medicine, and consumer health. This is a very good resource for physiotherapy and related topics. It covers unique physiotherapy journals not indexed in PubMed, such as Physiotherapy Canada or Physiotherapy. Moreover, this database includes the following physiotherapy journals in full text: Physiotherapy Canada (01/01/2004 to present), Physical Therapy (01/01/2000 to present), Physiotherapy Research International (03/01/2000 to present), Physiotherapy Theory & Practice (03/01/1999 to present), Physical Therapy Reviews (03/01/2003 to present), and many more. This is one of the most important resources that PABC members get access to via eHLbc.
2. EBMR (Evidence Based Medicine Reviews): This one is very exciting! You may all know that in medicine and health sciences, there is a move towards Evidence Based Practice. This is the resource that summarizes much of the evidence out there. EBMR includes the following databases: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (full-text); Database of Reviews of Abstracts of Effectiveness (full-text abstracts); Cochrane Controlled Trials Register (not full text); ACP Journal Club (full-text). In essence, it means that from now on PABC members have full-text access to all Cochrane reviews! Easy to search and browse, this is certainly the most important resource in Evidence Based Practice in today’s health sciences.
3. PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES: For those of you who deal with psychosocial aspect of health in their work, those are extremely important databases. PsychINFO contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, and dissertations in the fields of psychology and other social sciences. PsycARTICLES contains full-text articles in general psychology and some allied health – very good coverage.
4. SPORTDiscus with Full Text [TRIAL]: This is a comprehensive international database that covers all aspects of sport and fitness, including: individual and team sports, coaching, exercise physiology, sports medicine, physical fitness, physical education, biomechanics, recreation and leisure, psychology, sociology, history, law, facilities and equipment. This is an excellent resource for all of PABC members practicing sports and orthopedic physiotherapy.
5. EBSCO Biomedical Reference Collection: Comprehensive Edition: This is a full text collection of journals covering such disciplines as clinical medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, pre-clinical sciences and the health care system. It includes some related full text journals with lots of physiotherapy coverage, such as Sports Medicine, Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine and many more.
6. LWW Total Access Journal Collection: This is another full text collection of health sciences journals containing essential core journals to specialized resources in such areas as medicine, nursing, and life sciences. Some very useful journals with lots of physiotherapy coverage, like BMJ or Spine are included there is full text!
Any questions? Please let me know!
** Photo by jmv
Canadian Physiotherapy Association has issued a press release on Thursday, August 09, 2007 about waiting times for physiotherapy in Ontario.
Some 3,000 family physicians and 1,100 physiotherapists from Ontario were surveyed to identify how funding and wait times act as barriers to accessing physiotherapy services by researchers at the Arthritis Community Research and Evaluation Unit and University of Toronto.
Some numbers reported:
64% Unacceptable – Number of physicians who felt wait times for rehabilitation were unacceptable
3.6x Longer waits – Wait times for publicly funded physiotherapy treatments were 3.6 times longer than for privately funded treatments
150 Days – The longest reported wait for physiotherapy services
17% Now without access – Access to rehabilitation services has likely deteriorated since the time of the initial study due to the delisting of physiotherapy services at Schedule 5 clinics. A subsequent study found that 17.7 per cent of patients who required physiotherapy services did not receive treatment because they were uninsured or were not able to pay privately.
10x Better health with access to physiotherapy – The same follow-up study found that individuals who received required physiotherapy services were 10 times as likely to report having good health compared to those who did not receive required services.
The press release quotes Dr. Michel D. Landry, President of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association who says that:
“This study signals that access to physiotherapy and rehabilitation services has reached a critical point in the last five years.”
“Poor access to necessary rehabilitative services is an issue across Canada, the consequences of which will be detrimental to the overall health status of Canadians, especially as the population continues to age, and as the incidence of chronic diseases such as arthritis increase at an alarming pace”
Take a look on the Ottawa Citizen article following the press release. The press release is not on the CPA website yet, however, since Natalie Bovair, CPA’s Director of Communications has kindly forwarded it to me I attach it here in PDF format.
** Photo by Neil D.
Here is a very interesting article in equally interesting New York Times – “All Child-Play and No Workouts Make Dad an Unfit Boy“. It talks about how activity levels are changing with the arrival of children.
Funny…when reading it I was jumping on my chair – hey this is me after our daughter Tal was born last year – and hey this is my wife….Do you recognize yourself in the article?
A couple of quotes:
A first-of-its-kind study released in May by the University of Pittsburgh concluded that parenthood demonstrably reduces physical activity, while marriage has only a negligible effect.
Those who remained childless lost only a half hour of physical activity per week, while those who had children lost about three and a half hours. Men, in particular, were affected.
New fathers, who used to log just under eight hours of activity weekly, cut back a whopping four and a half hours.
Your thoughts?
** Photo by wiseacre photo