Health

1 day agoJane TrumbleSouth EastEllie ThompsonBilly died 15 days before his fifth birthdayA mother whose son died of a brain tumour has welcomed government plans to speed up research into the disease. Ellie Thompson's son Billy passed away when he was four years old from an aggressive brain tumour. Speaking on BBC Radio Surrey, Ellie, from Great Bookham, praised Archie: "It is an honour to be alongside him and all the other amazing people that have lost someone or have brain tumours themselves. "That afternoon, Downing Street announced steps which it says means people living with brain cancer "will get a faster route from research to treatment". Ellie ThompsonBilly underwent radiotherapy treatment for his brain tumourEllie's son Billy was four years old when he died in her arms just five months after diagnosis. She said: "To be told there is nothing they can do apart from radiotherapy... it was hopeless. "Now Ellie says she and other campaigners are finally making change.

Myles Dininio set out from Newfoundland on April 1 and reached Vancouver on Aug. 22, completing a cross-country journey aimed at raising awareness about mental health and funds for Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Billy Joel wants nothing more than to get back onstage. Whether he can is still an open question. “I have to take a series of tests before I know,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I can’t drive right now. I’m not allowed to drive.”

A gene therapy makes surviving retinal ganglion cells light-sensitive, allowing blind patients to detect objects using stimulating goggles. [Image: IOB, Veronique Juvin, 2021] An international team of researchers has shown that optogenetic therapy can improve the vision of people who have become blind through an inherited eye disease (N. Engl. J. Med., doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2602215). Clinical tests showed that seven out of the 10 patients became more sensitive to light while some of the participants were also able to detect and reach for specific objects.

Raytracing-guided LASIK reduced higher-order aberrations approximately 70% in 55 pseudophakic eyes Visual acuity, residual astigmatism, and mesopic contrast sensitivity improved at 3 months.

PHYSICAL activity was associated with slower Parkinson progression, including reduced motor and cognitive decline, according to findings from a longitudinal cohort study of patients with Parkinson disease. Researchers evaluated whether different measures of physical activity influenced long term disease outcomes and found consistent associations between greater activity levels and slower progression over time.

Jorgenson said the province is “overutilizing” travel nurses and “wasting millions and millions of taxpayers’ dollars in the process.” While acknowledging the important part travel nurses play in the health-care system when it comes to covering short-term positions and staffing needs, Jorgenson said it could take a toll on Saskatchewan’s nurses to be working alongside travel nurses being paid significantly more to do comparable work. “We have travel nurses working in communities alongside nurses in the same facilities that are forced to work on part-time, short-term contracts, and these nurses are struggling to survive,” Jorgenson said, calling that concept “incompetence.”The MLA said the issue stems from a lack of planning and the high cost of travel nurses. “Often, we have people who are willing to fill those jobs, and they’re complaining that they can’t get a full-time contract, and so I think it’s about, you know, some good service delivery and good value for the money.”Jorgenson said it’s a significant ask for a nurse to uproot their life to move hundreds of kilometres to a new community, away from home, for part-time work that isn’t guaranteed long-term.

By Lee GriffiThe sick season is upon us. Huron Perth Public Health (HPPH) says COVID-19, influenza and other respiratory viruses are circulating in the area. Since the end of August, five respiratory illness outbreaks have been reported at long-term care homes in Huron and Perth counties. “The best way to avoid and minimize respiratory illnesses is with immunization,” said Dr. Miriam Klassen, medical officer of health at HPPH. “It is very important to stay up to date on the vaccines you are eligible for to protect yourself and those around you. Immunization is safe and effective.”All Ontario residents six months of age and older are eligible to receive influenza and COVID-19 vaccines, while select high-risk groups are eligible for RSV immunization. Long-term care and retirement homes are required to follow provincial outbreak prevention and management guidance. When an outbreak is identified, homes work with public health to implement measures aimed at reducing transmission and protecting residents.

Published on October 15, 2026Architectures of Ageing in Place provides curated critical perspectives, from a practice-based research point of view, of buildings that are purpose built and/or refurbished to accommodate housing and care needs of older people ageing in place in high rise/medium rise integrated communities. This book identifies design innovations, in line with policy innovations, that have been made across private and public sectors to accommodate wellbeing and quality of life of older people living in integrated communities, which continue to foster intergenerational dialogue and exchange, and advance social citizenship. Case studies from a diverse range of geographies are examined including Portugal, Singapore, India, New Zealand, UK, Sweden, Belgium and the US. Chapters are grounded in evidence-based research including substantial primary data and post-occupancy evaluation, specifically the evaluation of architecture’s ‘social performance’. Projects highlight high-rise / medium-rise as an emerging and successful typology in accommodating residential and care needs of older people. Cite: "Architectures of Ageing in Place" 15 Oct 2026. ArchDaily. Accessed .

Loss-of-interruption variants in the CAG repeat of the huntingtin (HTT) gene can accelerate Huntington’s disease (HD) onset and progression. Medium spiny neurons (MSNs), which are gradually lost in HD, undergo selective somatic CAG expansion, but it is still unclear how this expansion relates to MSN pathology. In a study published in Neuron, Chris Kay, PhD, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and colleagues assessed somatic HTT CAG expansion in peripheral blood, postmortem brain tissue, and isolated MSNs from patients with HD, both with and without the CAG-CCG loss-of-interruption (LOI) modifier variant. Results showed that, while MSNs with large (111–150 CAG) and very large (>150 CAG) somatic expansions were rare early in HD, these larger expansions accumulated as disease duration increased. The CAG-CCG LOI modifier was linked with about a five-fold increase in the proportion of MSNs with large and very large expansions. Patients with the modifier also had fewer caudate MSNs, suggesting the modifier accelerates MSN loss alongside increased somatic CAG expansion. The modifier was also linked with reduced small somatic expansions in the blood.

While health-related barriers to workforce participation cost Canada more than $100 billion in economic output in 2025, reducing those barriers by 25 per cent could recover more than $25 billion annually, according to a new report by Deloitte Canada. “I don’t think the connection between health and the economy is necessarily new,” says Michelle Theroux, national health leader at Deloitte Canada. “But $25 billion is a lot of money. . . . We do believe health belongs on the competitiveness agenda and should be treated with the same discipline and measurement rigor that the country applies to trade, capital and other types of investments related to the economy.”

The study, published Wednesday, was the first to link powerful obesity and diabetes medicine with a reduced likelihood of schizophrenia hospitalization, Bloomberg reported. One of the authors of the study hypothesized that better metabolic health might support “psychiatric stability.” People with schizophrenia who were also taking GLP-1 drugs for diabetes had fewer psychiatric relapses in a large study of US health records, indicating another potential benefit from the medicines. The patients on GLP-1s were 24% less likely to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital than people not taking the drugs, researchers said, and 29% less likely to go to the emergency room for a mental health crisis. They were also less likely to be admitted than those who took other types of diabetes medicine, according to the study published Wednesday in the Lancet Psychiatry journal. (Kresge, 10/14)

High levels of potassium in the blood, common in people on certain medications or with kidney disease, often come with no symptoms but can be deadly in severe cases. Because people with hyperkalemia, or high potassium, often "feel normal," their treating physicians must determine whether their condition can be safely managed outside the hospital or requires more urgent treatment in the emergency department. Researchers at Western University and London Health Sciences Centre Research Institute (LHSCRI) have shown that the risk of death was significantly lower among patients who were able to get to an emergency department within 24 hours of an abnormally high potassium reading.

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Even when a person is fully unconscious under general anesthesia, their brain may still be doing something remarkable: processing language, recognizing patterns, and even anticipating which words will come next. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have discovered that the brain retains surprisingly sophisticated abilities during anesthesia, despite the absence of conscious awareness. The findings, published in the journal Nature, challenge traditional assumptions about the relationship between consciousness and thinking. They could also provide new insights into how the brain processes memories and language, potentially leading to advances in technologies that help people communicate after neurological injuries.

Open this photo in gallery:Minister of Health Marjorie Michel speaks during a news conference in Ottawa, Oct. Justin Tang/The Canadian PressCanadian health ministers meet in Winnipeg today after the federal government announced it would extend funding for mental health, addictions and home care by one year. Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel made the announcement on social media late Wednesday, saying the extension represents $1.2-billion in funding. The existing funding was set to expire next year. Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara is to host provincial and territorial counterparts today, and Michel is to co-chair Friday’s meeting.