About Homewood Human Solutions

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com) offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Mental Health Advocates Press for Consultations on Suicide Prevention

May 15, 2013 By

Today, from Canada newswire, comes an impor­tant announce­ment rel­e­vant to anyone’s work with men­tal health/illness and sui­cide prevention.

In sum­mary:

Dur­ing a week des­ig­nated as both Men­tal Health Week and National Nurs­ing Week, Cana­dian nurses are join­ing their alliance part­ners in the Cana­dian Alliance on Men­tal Ill­ness and Men­tal Health (CAMIMH) to encour­age the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to urgently ini­ti­ate con­sul­ta­tions on a national frame­work for sui­cide prevention.

Bill C-300, the Fed­eral Frame­work for Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Act passed on Decem­ber 14, 2012, includes a require­ment for gov­ern­ment action within 180 days of par­lia­men­tary approval — by June 13, 2013. The Cana­dian Nurses Asso­ci­a­tion (CNA) and CAMIMH want the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to press for­ward with these much-needed con­sul­ta­tions to exam­ine how gov­ern­ments, health pro­fes­sion­als, agen­cies and Cana­di­ans can col­lab­o­ra­tively act on suicide-prevention ini­tia­tives nationwide.

Bill C-300, the Fed­eral Frame­work for Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Act passed on Decem­ber 14, 2012, includes a require­ment for gov­ern­ment action within 180 days of par­lia­men­tary approval — by June 13, 2013. The Cana­dian Nurses Asso­ci­a­tion (CNA) and CAMIMH want the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to press for­ward with these much-needed con­sul­ta­tions to exam­ine how gov­ern­ments, health pro­fes­sion­als, agen­cies and Cana­di­ans can col­lab­o­ra­tively act on suicide-prevention ini­tia­tives nationwide.

Source news release is here.

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How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

Schizophrenia: Infographic breaking myths

May 15, 2013 By

A blog reader shared this info­graphic with us this morn­ing, and we like the mes­sage and the quick grasp of this chal­leng­ing men­tal health issue.

This info­graphic, and many more on top­ics of men­tal health, men­tal ill­ness stigma, inspir­ing men­tal sto­ries, health info­graph­ics, etc., are found on our new Pin­ter­est. Visit us on Pin­ter­est and explore and learn!

Schizophrenia: The Broken Mind
Source: BestMedicalDegrees.com

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How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

 
Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

 

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

 

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

 
Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.
 
Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)
 
Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.
 
Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.
 
Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!
 
We’re on Google Plus!
 


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

First Health App Review and Certification Process?

May 14, 2013 By

This is an inter­est­ing devel­op­ment and one we think is, in part, fueled by the inves­ti­ga­tion into reg­u­la­tion stan­dards by the FDA for apps that are con­sid­ered ‘med­ical devices’.

Any­one can write a health, fit­ness, or med­ical app today, and just about any­one does. But whether a given app is accu­rate, func­tional, safe, and malware-free is anyone’s guess. Happ­tique aims to help providers and patients iden­tify health apps with cred­i­ble content.

Happ­tique describes their cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram as follows:

The Happ­tique Health App Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Pro­gram (HACP) is intended to help health­care pro­fes­sion­als and con­sumers eas­ily iden­tify med­ical, health and fit­ness apps that deliver cred­i­ble con­tent, con­tain safe­guards for user data and func­tion as described. The final Stan­dards assess four areas: Oper­abil­ity, Pri­vacy, Secu­rity and Content.

In July 2012, Happ­tique released a set of draft Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Stan­dards and asso­ci­ated Per­for­mance Require­ments that were devel­oped under the direc­tion of a Blue Rib­bon Panel with input from many pri­vate orga­ni­za­tions and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of key Fed­eral agen­cies whom Happ­tique met with, includ­ing: mHIMSS, U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA), Fed­eral Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion (FCC), Fed­eral Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC), and the Office of the National Coor­di­na­tor for Health Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­ogy (ONC). While the final Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Stan­dards reflect this valu­able col­lec­tive feed­back, and input pro­vided dur­ing the pub­lic com­ment period, it does not rep­re­sent their approval or endorsement.

In terms of devel­op­ing and final­ize the stan­dards, Happ­tique met with and received feed­back from the fol­low­ing pri­vate orga­ni­za­tions and fed­eral agencies:

While the final stan­dards reflect valu­able feed­back pro­vided by these orga­ni­za­tions and agen­cies, and indi­vid­u­als that sub­mit­ted feed­back dur­ing the pub­lic com­ments period, it does not rep­re­sent their approval or endorsement.

For more infor­ma­tion visit the Happ­tique web­site to down­load the stan­dards and read about the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion program.

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

The Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health Launches 11th Annual Faces of Mental Illness Campaign

May 13, 2013 By

The Cana­dian Alliance on Men­tal Ill­ness and Men­tal Health (CAMIMH) is launch­ing the 11th annual Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness cam­paign and seek­ing nom­i­na­tions from the public.

CAMIMH is proud to orga­nize this impor­tant cam­paign, which fea­tures the faces and sto­ries of Cana­di­ans liv­ing in recov­ery with men­tal ill­ness. The cam­paign selects five indi­vid­u­als and enables them to tell their men­tal health sto­ries through pro­mo­tional mate­ri­als, in pro­file videos and through media engagement.

“The Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness are advo­cates within the men­tal health com­mu­nity. Their lived expe­ri­ences allow them to engage the pub­lic and polit­i­cal deci­sion mak­ers in a very effec­tive way,” said Dr. Karen Cohen, CAMIMH Cam­paign Chair 2013. “Their’s are sto­ries that, when shared pub­licly, help to edu­cate, reverse stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion, and help oth­ers in recovery.”

The Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness cam­paign is a key com­po­nent of Men­tal Ill­ness Aware­ness Week (MIAW) run­ning from Octo­ber 6th-12th 2013. The cam­paign is made pos­si­ble by the gen­er­ous sup­port and com­mit­ment of Bell, CAMIMH’s Pre­sent­ing Spon­sor, as part of Bell Let’s Talk. CAMIMH is also glad to wel­come and appre­ci­ate Lund­beck Canada Inc. for their gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tion as Pre­mier Sponsor.

“Men­tal ill­ness affects so many Cana­di­ans and their need for help is great. Although we have treat­ments, ser­vices and sup­ports that work, these are not suf­fi­ciently avail­able to peo­ple who need them. Canada must do a bet­ter job invest­ing in treat­ments, ser­vices and sup­ports and mak­ing them acces­si­ble where and when peo­ple need them. The Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness cam­paign shows Cana­di­ans that men­tal ill­ness has many faces – faces famil­iar to all of us and the faces of peo­ple who deserve respect, admi­ra­tion, and most impor­tantly, our atten­tion. The cam­paign reminds us that recov­ery is pos­si­ble, and that access to ser­vices and sup­ports is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of this recov­ery,” con­cluded Cohen.

CAMIMH Call­ing for Sub­mis­sions from Mem­bers of the Public

To nom­i­nate a Face, please visit camimh.ca. Nom­i­na­tions will be accepted until May 31st, 2013. The 2013 Faces will be announced in late June. CAMIMH would once again like to thank their gen­er­ous spon­sors who make this cam­paign pos­si­ble: Bell, Lund­beck Canada Inc., Impact Pub­lic Affairs and Janssen.

Estab­lished in 1998, the Cana­dian Alliance on Men­tal Ill­ness and Men­tal Health (CAMIMH) is an alliance of national men­tal health orga­ni­za­tions com­prised of health care providers and orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing per­sons with men­tal ill­ness and their fam­i­lies and care­givers. CAMIMH’s man­date is to ensure that men­tal health is placed on the national agenda so that per­sons with a lived expe­ri­ence of men­tal ill­ness and their fam­i­lies receive appro­pri­ate access to care and support.

For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:
Kalene DeBaere­maeker
Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness Com­mit­tee
Tel: 613–233-8906
Email: faces@miaw.ca

To nom­i­nate a Face, please visit camimh.ca.

 

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

Canadian (Veterans) PTSD App reviewed

May 6, 2013 By

PTSD Coach CanadaWe don’t typ­i­cally men­tion spe­cific apps on the Healthy Work­places blog, but this pos­i­tive event invites men­tion because it is a Cana­dian gov­ern­ment mHealth (mobile health) initiative.

Vet­er­ans Affairs Canada (VAC) has just released the smart­phone app “PTSD Coach Canada.” (Unfor­tu­nate tim­ing in the app name, given the change to the diag­nos­tic title in the new released DSM-5).

From the Google Play store:

Together with pro­fes­sional treat­ment, PTSD Coach Canada pro­vides you depend­able resources you can trust. If you have, or think you might have PTSD, this app is for you. Fam­ily and friends can also learn from this app. PTSD Coach Canada pro­vides you with infor­ma­tion and self-help tools based on research.

The PTSD Coach Canada app can help you learn about and man­age symp­toms that can occur after trauma. Fea­tures include:

* Reli­able infor­ma­tion on PTSD and treat­ments that work

* Tools for screen­ing and track­ing your symptoms

* Con­ve­nient, easy-to-use tools to help you han­dle stress symptoms

* Direct links to sup­port and help

* Always with you when you need it

First, we very much like that this app sig­nals recog­ni­tion from the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment of men­tal health issues, and tech­no­log­i­cal advances that are chang­ing the nature of client/treatment inter­ac­tions (i.e. mHealth).

From a design stand­point we like that is light on size (for fast first-time install), and has auto-updates that will com­mu­ni­cate with your device as changes are announced and/or made.

We also like that is avail­able on the iPhone and Android devices, but it is not iPad com­pat­i­ble, which excludes a large pop­u­la­tion of users. And con­sid­er­ing that many vet­er­ans are senior now with chal­lenged eye­sight, the small app screen of a smart­phone seems prohibitive.

From a con­tent perspective:

  • We like that the usage dis­claimer is com­pre­hen­sive and warns against self-diagnosis. But we don’t like that “dis­claimer” and “setup” are rolled into one. Upon first use we were not pre­pared for set­ting things up, and had expected a menu of choices or some kind of break to note the app was switch­ing gears to a new topic.
  • That said, we like that the setup notes that you need to imme­di­ately deter­mine friends, loved ones and health pro­fes­sion­als who can help when stressed, pic­tures you find com­fort­ing or funny, and songs that are relax­ing. The instruc­tions to do all of this though, are a bit con­fus­ing and rely upon a lot of user tech knowl­edge (min­i­mal knowl­edge, but knowl­edge just the same).
  • We def­i­nitely not fond of the dark grey back­ground and white con­trast­ing text colour pal­lette. That is kind of depressing.
  • We like the audio option for lis­ten­ing to each sec­tion (e.g. “What is PTSD?”)
  • We don’t like the typo­graph­i­cal errors
  • We very much like the self-assessment mea­sure that will pro­vide ongo­ing stor­age and recall of the user’s self-assessment results, and email a reminder when the assess­ment is due. This allows for track­ing over time that could, poten­tially, influ­ence treatment-seeking, progress report­ing, iden­ti­fy­ing set­backs, etc.
  • We don’t like the place­ment of “Sched­ule Assess­ments” as a but­ton on the menu that is pre­sented after the orig­i­nal assess­ment. That orig­i­nal assess­ment asks if you want to do the sched­ul­ing and gives you options, and then this same but­ton ask the same information.
  • We find the tools for man­ag­ing PTSD of great vari­ety, easy to use, and quite inter­est­ing. For exam­ple, pos­i­tive imagery using your pre-selected calm­ing image and audio. Bet­ter still, these tools are cat­e­go­rized accord­ing to dif­fer­ent symp­toms (e.g. worried/anxious man­age­ment tools ver­sus anger man­age­ment tools).
  • We very much like the under­ly­ing treat­ment mes­sage which sup­ports cog­ni­tive behav­ioural type ther­a­pies, some­times com­bined with medication(s).
  • And we very much like the “Find Sup­port” area that uti­lizes the user’s own iden­ti­fied sup­port net­work as well as assis­tance con­tact­ing the Vet­er­ans Affairs Assis­tance Line.
  • We ques­tion, over­all, whether this app will be use­ful for the pub­lic, con­sid­er­ing the sup­port num­bers pro­vided. How­ever all other sec­tions are applic­a­ble. And there is an option men­tioned for non-Veterans con­tact assis­tance (9–1-1 but under­stand­ably noth­ing more specific).

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

NIMH withdraws support for DSM-5

April 30, 2013 By

Just released. And we con­sider this big news.

In a move that has been called humil­i­at­ing and a “kill shot” to the DSM-5,” the National Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH), the world’s largest men­tal health insti­tute and fund­ing resource, has with­drawn its sup­port for DSM-5.

Two weeks before the for­mal release of the DSM-5, the NIMH is stat­ing it will no longer fund research projects that rely exclu­sively on DSM cri­te­ria, instead “re-orientating its research away from DSM categories.”

Thomas R. Ins­tel, MD, Direc­tor of the NIMH bit­ingly comments:

The weak­ness of the man­ual is its lack of validity…unlike our def­i­n­i­tions of ischemic heart dis­ease, lym­phoma, or AIDS, the DSM diag­noses are based on a con­sen­sus about clus­ters of clin­i­cal symp­toms, not any objec­tive lab­o­ra­tory measure…patients with men­tal dis­or­ders deserve better.

Addi­tion­ally, the NIMH reasons:

The diag­nos­tic sys­tem has to be based on the emerg­ing research data, not on the cur­rent symptom-based cat­e­gories. Imag­ine decid­ing that EKGs were not use­ful because many patients with chest pain did not have EKG changes. That is what we have been doing for decades when we reject a bio­marker because it does not detect a DSM cat­e­gory. We need to begin col­lect­ing the genetic, imag­ing, phys­i­o­logic, and cog­ni­tive data to see how all the data – not just the symp­toms – clus­ter and how these clus­ters relate to treat­ment response.

This is not the first we have heard from the NIMH crit­i­ciz­ing the DSM-5 or diag­nos­tic man­u­als in gen­eral. Last month, the insti­tute pub­lished a com­men­tary crit­i­cal of all DSMs, remarking:

The strength of each of the edi­tions of DSM has been “reli­a­bil­ity” – each edi­tion has ensured that clin­i­cians use the same terms in the same ways. The weak­ness is its lack of valid­ity. Unlike our def­i­n­i­tions of ischemic heart dis­ease, lym­phoma, or AIDS, the DSM diag­noses are based on a con­sen­sus about clus­ters of clin­i­cal symp­toms, not any objec­tive lab­o­ra­tory mea­sure. In the rest of med­i­cine, this would be equiv­a­lent to cre­at­ing diag­nos­tic sys­tems based on the nature of chest pain or the qual­ity of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diag­no­sis, once com­mon in other areas of med­i­cine, has been largely replaced in the past half cen­tury as we have under­stood that symp­toms alone rarely indi­cate the best choice of treatment.

What is also inter­est­ing here, is that this with­drawal of sup­port helps shed light on the NIMH’s single-minded focus on bio­log­i­cal psy­chi­a­try as the rep­re­sented solu­tion to these ambi­gu­i­ties and confusion.

Whereas the NIMH is leav­ing some room for dis­cus­sion of envi­ron­men­tal and psy­cho­log­i­cal fac­tors in the eti­ol­ogy of men­tal dis­or­ders, inter­ests in these fac­tors take a back seat to the brain as the alleged seat and cause.

Given how broadly incon­clu­sive the research into bio­chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal fac­tors is and the com­plex­ity of these ele­ments, many pro­fes­sion­als are dis­mayed at the NIMH’s deci­sion and position.

In tomorrow’s blog, “What are the poten­tial impacts of NIMH’s rejec­tion of DSM?”

Infor­ma­tion sources:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3015842/posts

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-dsm5-ignores-biology-mental-illness

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201305/the-nimh-withdraws-support-dsm-5

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

Feeling grateful? You must be getting a good night’s sleep!

April 29, 2013 By

Cour­tesy of Teresa Stein­hauer, HR Advi­sor, Well­ness, at the City of (beau­ti­ful) Cal­gary, comes this info she shared with us this morn­ing. Thanks Teresa!

Source: Sur­pris­ing Con­nec­tions Between Our Well-being and Giv­ing, Get­ting, and Gratitude

We find this quite interesting.

New research is high­light­ing a more sur­pris­ing ben­e­fit of good sleep: more feel­ings of grat­i­tude for relationships.

“A plethora of research high­lights the impor­tance of get­ting a good night’s sleep for phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being, yet in our soci­ety, peo­ple still seem to take pride in need­ing, and get­ting, lit­tle sleep,” says Amie Gor­don of the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. “And in the past, research has shown that grat­i­tude pro­motes good sleep, but our research looks at the link in the other direc­tion and, to our knowl­edge, is the first to show that every­day expe­ri­ences of poor sleep are neg­a­tively asso­ci­ated with grat­i­tude toward oth­ers – an impor­tant emo­tion that helps form and main­tain close social bonds.”

In the first study, peo­ple who expe­ri­enced a poor night’s sleep were less grate­ful after list­ing five things in life for which they were appre­cia­tive than were peo­ple who had slept well the night before.

In the sec­ond study, par­tic­i­pants recorded their sleep from the pre­vi­ous night for two weeks and their feel­ings of grat­i­tude. The researchers found a decline in grat­i­tude asso­ci­ated with poor sleep, and those par­tic­i­pants reported feel­ing more self­ish those days.

The final study looked at het­ero­sex­ual cou­ples and found that peo­ple tend to feel less grate­ful toward their roman­tic part­ners if either they or their part­ners gen­er­ally sleep poorly. “In line with this find­ing, peo­ple reported feel­ing less appre­ci­ated by their part­ners if they or their part­ner tends to sleep poorly, sug­gest­ing that the lack of grat­i­tude is trans­mit­ted to the part­ner,” Gor­don says.

“Poor sleep is not just expe­ri­enced in iso­la­tion,” Gor­don says. “Instead, it influ­ences our inter­ac­tions with oth­ers, such as our abil­ity to be grate­ful, a vital social emotion.”

 “Top Five” Strate­gies for Good Sleep

Want­ing bet­ter sleep? Try these strategies:

Prac­tice good sleep hygiene

Sleep hygiene is the name we give the healthy sleep habits you per­form in prepar­ing for sleep­ing. These are con­sis­tent ‘rit­u­als’ that  help you relax each night before you go to bed (e.g. a warm bath, a few min­utes of read­ing). For example:

  • stick to the same sleep sched­ule (time to bed, time to awake) even on weekends
  • don’t exer­cise late in the day
  • go to bed at the same time each evening, and get up at the same time every morn­ing. Includ­ing weekends.
  • avoid tak­ing naps.
  • don’t do any of these activ­i­ties late in the day: exer­cise, drink alco­hol or caf­feine, or smoke.
  • just prior to sleep, do not read exten­sively, work on a com­puter, or watch TV
  • relax before going to sleep
  • try to avoid think­ing wor­ri­some thoughts. Save wor­ries for day­time when you can take some action to resolve them.
  • make your bed­room as rest­ful as pos­si­ble and free from dis­trac­tions (quiet, dark, and slightly cool).
  • use earplugs and/or eye shades
  • use your bed only for sleep and intimacy

Get more active

Reg­u­lar aer­o­bic activ­ity helps peo­ple fall asleep faster, spend more time in deep sleep, and awaken less often dur­ing the night.

Eat well and main­tain good nutrition

A light evening snack of com­plex carbs and pro­tein can lead to bet­ter sleep. Cereal with milk or crack­ers and cheese fit the bill, but they should be eaten at least an hour before bed. Warm milk and  chamomile tea raise body tem­per­a­ture and make many peo­ple feel sleepy.

Cer­tain foods and drinks should be avoided in the 4–6 hours before bed:

  • Caf­feine, includ­ing cof­fee, tea, and soda
  • Heavy or spicy foods
  • Alco­hol (While alco­hol helps some peo­ple fall asleep, it leads to night­time awakenings.)

Man­age your stress

It is crit­i­cal that you learn to rec­og­nize when you are feel­ing stressed and under­take strate­gies to help pre­vent and/or man­age it. Med­i­ta­tion, guided imagery, deep breath­ing exer­cises, and pro­gres­sive mus­cle relax­ation (alter­nately tens­ing and releas­ing mus­cles) can counter anx­i­ety and rac­ing thoughts.

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

Want to rejuvenate your mind…try more sleep!

April 29, 2013 By

Cour­tesy of Teresa Stein­hauer, HR Advi­sor, Well­ness, at the City of (beau­ti­ful) Cal­gary, comes this info she shared with us this morn­ing. Thanks Teresa!

Source: The Sur­pris­ing Rela­tion­ship Between Sleep and Learning

“…it’s a fact, lack of sleep does not do your body good. And worse, it has a reverse effect on your brain and makes cog­ni­tive func­tions much more dif­fi­cult. Both your body and mind need sleep to rest and recu­per­ate from the day. It needs the time to slow down, digest, repair and re-establish energy for the fol­low­ing day.”

And what does the research say?

“A detailed 2002 study done by the Har­vard Med­ical School demon­strated the effects of lack of sleep on some par­tic­i­pants. They con­cluded that a good night sleep results in a 20% increase in motor speed with­out loss of accu­racy, while in the same period of time dur­ing wake pro­vides no ben­e­fit. Since sleep helps keep new brain cells alive in the hip­pocam­pus, a defi­ciency would ulti­mately impact over­all cog­ni­tion and elim­i­nate the poten­tial ben­e­fit of new learn­ing, there­fore decreas­ing the abil­ity to learn and retain infor­ma­tion. And since we are all life­long learn­ers, the more infor­ma­tion we can retain, the larger our capac­ity to learn and do.

So the writ­ing is on the wall…getting a proper amount of sleep for you is essen­tial to good men­tal func­tion­ing. How do you know if you’re get­ting enough sleep? Ask your­self ques­tions like these:

After a typ­i­cal night’s sleep, do I feel rested and refreshed? Do you have trou­ble get­ting through the day with­out napping?

And keep in mind our Top 5 bet­ter sleep strategies:

 “Top Five” Strate­gies for Good Sleep

Want­ing bet­ter sleep? Try these strategies:

Prac­tice good sleep hygiene

Sleep hygiene is the name we give the healthy sleep habits you per­form in prepar­ing for sleep­ing. These are con­sis­tent ‘rit­u­als’ that  help you relax each night before you go to bed (e.g. a warm bath, a few min­utes of read­ing). For example:

  • stick to the same sleep sched­ule (time to bed, time to awake) even on weekends
  • don’t exer­cise late in the day
  • go to bed at the same time each evening, and get up at the same time every morn­ing. Includ­ing weekends.
  • avoid tak­ing naps.
  • don’t do any of these activ­i­ties late in the day: exer­cise, drink alco­hol or caf­feine, or smoke.
  • just prior to sleep, do not read exten­sively, work on a com­puter, or watch TV
  • relax before going to sleep
  • try to avoid think­ing wor­ri­some thoughts. Save wor­ries for day­time when you can take some action to resolve them.
  • make your bed­room as rest­ful as pos­si­ble and free from dis­trac­tions (quiet, dark, and slightly cool).
  • use earplugs and/or eye shades
  • use your bed only for sleep and intimacy

Get more active

Reg­u­lar aer­o­bic activ­ity helps peo­ple fall asleep faster, spend more time in deep sleep, and awaken less often dur­ing the night.

Eat well and main­tain good nutrition

A light evening snack of com­plex carbs and pro­tein can lead to bet­ter sleep. Cereal with milk or crack­ers and cheese fit the bill, but they should be eaten at least an hour before bed. Warm milk and  chamomile tea raise body tem­per­a­ture and make many peo­ple feel sleepy.

Cer­tain foods and drinks should be avoided in the 4–6 hours before bed:

  • Caf­feine, includ­ing cof­fee, tea, and soda
  • Heavy or spicy foods
  • Alco­hol (While alco­hol helps some peo­ple fall asleep, it leads to night­time awakenings.)

Man­age your stress

It is crit­i­cal that you learn to rec­og­nize when you are feel­ing stressed and under­take strate­gies to help pre­vent and/or man­age it. Med­i­ta­tion, guided imagery, deep breath­ing exer­cises, and pro­gres­sive mus­cle relax­ation (alter­nately tens­ing and releas­ing mus­cles) can counter anx­i­ety and rac­ing thoughts.

 

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

New Poll Ranks Chronic Pain Well Below Drug Addiction as a Major Health Problem

April 24, 2013 By

Med­ical News Today — April 12, 2013

A new national pub­lic opin­ion poll com­mis­sioned by Research!America shows only 18% of respon­dents believe chronic pain is a major health prob­lem, even though a major­ity of Amer­i­cans (63%) say they know some­one who expe­ri­enced pain so severe that they sought pre­scrip­tion med­i­cines to treat it.

Chronic pain con­di­tions affect about 100 mil­lion U.S. adults at a cost of approx­i­mately $600 bil­lion annu­ally in direct med­ical treat­ment costs and lost productivity.

Other poll highlights:

  • 60% say chronic pain tends to be dis­missed by doc­tors and the public.
  • More than half (54%) say doc­tors are not dis­cussing the pos­si­bil­ity of devel­op­ing depen­dence or addic­tion to pain med­ica­tion enough with their patients.
  • 52% believe doc­tors should have lim­its on the amount and dosage of pain med­ica­tion they are allowed to prescribe.
  • Based on their expe­ri­ence or what they have heard, respon­dents say they would use the fol­low­ing treat­ments to try to relieve chronic pain: phys­i­cal ther­apy (64%), over-the-counter pain med­ica­tion (55%), diet or lifestyle change (54%), chi­ro­prac­tor (49%), pre­scrip­tion pain med­ica­tion (47%), herbal reme­dies (38%), and acupunc­ture (36%).
  • When asked what per­cent­age of drug over­dose deaths involve physician-prescribed pain med­ica­tion or pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion obtained ille­gally, responses var­ied widely. In fact, 75% of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal over­dose deaths involve an opi­oid pain medication.
  • Only 4% say it’s the respon­si­bil­ity of law enforce­ment to address the pre­scrip­tion drug abuse problem.

Read more here.
————————————————————————————

How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

Canadian Alcohol Pricing Research Makes Waves Abroad, Not So Much At Home

April 24, 2013 By

Healthy Debate — March 7, 2013

Cana­dian research that shows how alco­hol price poli­cies can reduce alcohol-related harm is mak­ing waves in the United King­dom, Aus­tralia and the United States—but not yet at home.

Inter­na­tional atten­tion has far out­stripped domes­tic atten­tion for a surge of pub­lic health-related alco­hol research com­ing out of the Uni­ver­sity of Victoria’s Cen­tre for Addic­tions Research of British Colum­bia (CARBC), the Cana­dian Cen­tre on Sub­stance Abuse (CCSA), and the Toronto-based Cen­tre for Addic­tion and Men­tal Health (CAMH).

A BC study pub­lished last month in the jour­nal Addic­tions received cov­er­age from the BBC, the Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald and Reuters, but only min­i­mal expo­sure in Cana­dian media.

That research sug­gested that a 10% increase in the aver­age min­i­mum price for all alco­hol bev­er­ages in British Colum­bia might be asso­ci­ated with as much as a 30% drop in deaths wholly attrib­uted to alco­hol such as alco­hol psy­choses, alco­holic car­diomy­opa­thy and alcohol-induced pancreatitis.

Accord­ing to the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, alco­hol is ranked sec­ond only to tobacco as a lead­ing fac­tor in death and dis­abil­ity in high income coun­tries, and many pub­lic health offi­cials feel alcohol-related harm has been down­played by governments.

Read the arti­cle here.

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

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