Anne Bruce’s research focused on the potential for mindfulness meditation to promote a better quality of living and dying by reducing stress and anxiety. Mindfulness meditation, which involves nonjudgmental and moment-to-moment awareness of change within a person’s mind and body, has been researched extensively for the last decade. But little research has been done on the experience of people with life-threatening illness and hospice caregivers who practice this form of meditation. At the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, where care is based on mindfulness meditation, Anne conducted extensive fieldwork while working as a volunteer caregiver. Through in-depth unstructured conversations, she gained insights about new ways of understanding death and dying, and their meaning for those holding non-theistic, non-Western perspectives. Anne hopes findings from this research will help enhance understanding of mindfulness meditation as a self-care practice for people with life-threatening illness. Ultimately, she hopes her work will help program planners develop new models of hospice care and support services that address psychological and spiritual needs of people with life-threatening illness and their caregivers.
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Menstrual pain and discomfort in adolescence: Socialization influences
Tina Wang’s interests in health psychology and peer influences prompted her to examine a problem that is a major cause of missed school days among adolescent girls – menstrual pain and discomfort. Most adolescents fail to manage their pain effectively. But virtually no research has been done on how adolescent girls influence each other’s attitudes towards pain. Wang’s study will focus on similarities and differences in the attitudes and coping behaviours of adolescent girls related to menstrual pain. Identifying peer influences could lead to the development of school programs that help adolescent girls manage menstrual pain more effectively, resulting in better health and fewer missed school days. Wang’s long-term goal is to contribute to women’s health by developing a better understanding of the social factors that influence health.
Lymphocyte defects in X-linked lymphoproliferative disease
Dr. Ala Aoukaty has spent nine years investigating anti-viral and anti-tumour cells. Aoukaty’s doctoral research focused on understanding the signalling process that occurs after receptors on the surface of cells are engaged. That experience provided him with a strong background to conduct postdoctoral research on X-linked lymphoproliferative disease (XLP), a fatal disorder caused by a genetic mutation and characterized by severe infectious mononucleosis, immune deficiency and malignant lymphomas (tumours). A large Aboriginal family that carries the genetic mutation has been identified. Aoukaty will isolate and study cells from XLP patients and carriers of the disease in the family to study the abnormal immune responses at work. The research will shed light on how the immune system specifically responds to Epstein-Barr virus, which causes infectious mononucleosis, provide insights in general about lymphoproliferative disorders (diseases of immune system tissue), and enable the testing of gene replacement therapies.
Role of Membrane Binding in Regulation of the Activators of Ras
Dr. Joanne Johnson’s research examines events at the molecular level that ultimately lead to cell growth. Among the events is activation of cell surface receptors by ligand molecules, which leads to generation of specialized lipids in the cell membrane. These lipids act as signals to promote membrane binding and activation of proteins. Johnson is assessing the role of Diacylglycerol (DAG), and two newly identified proteins, RasGRP and CalDAG1. Johnson is specifically investigating how DAG and other lipids influence membrane binding and activity of RasGRP and CalDAG1, which function to activate the Ras protein, a critical switch in the control of cell growth. Knowledge of this process may lead to development of specific inhibitor drugs controlling cell growth and defending against tumours.
Development and pilot testing of a novel intervention to ensure optimal support for arthritis patients
While family and friends of people living with arthritis have been identified as key sources of support, little research has been done on the specific role and impact of their support. Research suggests the well-being of patients with arthritis suffers when their spouses don’t understand what support they need. Through interviews and focus groups, Allen Lehman is identifying the types of support that arthritis patients want and need from family and friends. He is also identifying ways to increase positive support and assessing how support improves health and reduces health care costs. Lehman will use the results to develop a health education program for arthritis patients and their family and friends. Ultimately, Lehman hopes this research will provide a model for identifying support needs in people with other chronic illness.
The Early Identification and Intervention for Children At-risk for Developing Dyslexia
Dyslexia affects a person’s ability to process language in order to learn to read. If undetected and untreated, the neurological disorder can lead to antisocial behaviour, depression, suicide and other consequences. Nonie Lesaux’s initial research on dyslexia revealed the persistent nature of literacy problems in adults, convincing her of the critical need to identify children at-risk of developing the disorder and intervene at an early stage. Now Lesaux is researching the effectiveness of a kindergarten intervention program for at-risk students, with a particular interest in the social and environmental factors that compound this disorder. Because dyslexia often goes undetected among low-income groups and those who speak English as a second language (ESL), Lesaux is specifically focusing on the effectiveness of the intervention program for children from low-income and ESL families. She hopes that a key result of the research will be a kindergarten screening tool to easily and accurately identify dyslexia in children.
The hierarchical structure and function of social support as a quality of life determinant among community dwelling older adults with chronic lung disease
The number of older adults with chronic lung diseases, such as asthma and bronchitis, is steadily growing in BC. Spouses are often the only source of support for people living with these diseases, yet little research has been done on their supportive role or on alternative forms of support. Gail Low hopes to address these gaps by researching support systems that promote well-being and help older adults cope with lung disease. Her research involves asking older adults to identify how and why their support systems work to help provide direction for new lung health services. She is also developing a map of meaningful support systems as a model to guide existing community health programs.
Assessing the Mental Health of Canadians: What are we measuring and How Does it Relate to Health Care Utilization?
Many studies have identified socio-economic status as a major factor affecting health. Christopher Richardson is narrowing the focus to look specifically at the relationship between socio-economic status, mental health and health care usage. This study involves the use of sophisticated statistical technologies to analyze data from National Population Health Surveys on factors affecting health such as education, income and mental health. Richardson hopes this work will lead to a better understanding of mental health and the ability to more precisely measure mental health and its connection to health care usage.
Mapping the socio-cognitive determinants of bullying and victimization: Preventative steps toward reducing childhood aggression
Bullying and victimization plague one in five Canadian children and the incidence and severity of such behaviours is increasing. Even more alarming are the long-term consequences of this behaviour, including delinquency and abusive behaviour in adulthood for bullies, and depression and suicidal behaviour for victims. Most programs designed to prevent bullying and victimization emphasize controlling and monitoring children’s lives, with limited success. Bryan Sokol’s research takes a different approach. Sokol is putting together psychological profiles of children who are routinely aggressive and those who engage in bullying. His study aims to identify the internal, or psychological factors that distinguish non-aggressive children from bullies. Sokol, who has previously researched suicide among First Nations adolescents, hopes his study will ultimately lead to more effective prevention of the health problems resulting from childhood aggression.
The Contribution of Auditory Temporal Processing to Speech Perception in Noise: Speech Comprehension Deficits in the Elderly
A common and frustrating difficulty for the elderly is understanding speech in everyday conversation, especially where the background is noisy. People commonly report that different sound sources are “Jumbled” (e.g. voices, background sounds). We propose that the brain relies on high fidelity transmission of sound codes and compares their timing in order to sort out different sound sources: When auditory neurons are activated in synchrony, their activity is perceived as representing a single sound source. Conversely, asynchronous activation conveys the presence of multiple sources. We hypothesize that age-related changes in auditory neurons introduce timing errors to the sound code, thereby compromising the use of synchrony to separate multiple sounds during perception. We will simulate this age-related hearing disorder by altering the temporal structure of speech to disrupt neural synchrony and speech perception in noise so that younger listeners experience elderly-like difficulties understanding speech in noise. In parallel, we will simulate the disorder in established computer models of auditory neurons to delineate the influence of reduced signal fidelity on sound codes and synchrony binding in the brain. The long-term goal of this research is the development of a novel hearing test battery designed to address speech-in-noise problem. We also hope to contribute to the development of novel hearing aid technology, where the device employs the temporal structure of sound to separate a single voice from the noisy environment. Currently, hearing aid technology entails the indiscriminant amplification of all sounds in the listener’s environment.