Page eight returns to its senses

I’ve accepted a volunteer assignment that will keep me busy until the new year. As a result, page eight will return to its senses for a while and be without this column. Better to be predictably absent than unpredictably present, Rick and I have agreed.

Let me tell you a little bit about what I’ll be up to.

I had a conversation many years ago with a representative of a charitable foundation that regularly funded health care organizations. He complained that everything was getting too specialized: it was as if there were a charity to support left lung research and a charity to support right lung research, and each was arguing it was more deserving of support than the other. He suggested no one could be the winner in that sort of battle.

The same held true for neurological illnesses. Why should the federal government give a priority to supporting research into, say, muscular dystrophy, at the expense of, say, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)? Each were conditions of the brain, and each had similar devastating consequences. If they were battling one another for funding, they would be playing a zero sum game.

Fortunately, the charitable organizations dealing with neurological conditions were smart enough to recognize the need for a concerted approach and formed an umbrella charitable organization called Neurological Health Charities Canada. (A full list of members can be found at the NHCC website, mybrainmatters.ca.

The NHCC organization then approached the federal government and secured funding, implemented through the Public Health Agency of Canada, to run a series of studies known as the National Population Study of Neurological Conditions. It is surprising how little ‘baseline’ research had previously been done in Canada: much of what we assumed to be true has been extrapolated from U.S. statistics.

The studies, now complete, looked, among other things, at the incidence and prevalence of brain conditions in Canada, their direct and indirect impact on families, the risk factors that were associated with the development of the conditions, and the support services that families needed.

The studies are being consolidated in a single summary report, which will be delivered to the federal minister of heath in early 2014. Before that, however, it will be vetted by a panel of health care system ‘users’ to see if it resonates with them or needs to be touched up to reflect their concerns – without violating the integrity of the reported scientific findings. I am chairing this panel, which starts its work in the next few days.

I consider it a privilege to enjoy a regular place in this paper, surrounded by Kathleen’s wonderful pictures, Rick’s fearless reporting and the dedicated work of the other members of our family of columnists. I just hope that my temporary absence will not result in readers discovering that they actually prefer a page eight that has returned to its senses.

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Those interested in the work of NHCC may also be interested in attending a gala dinner in Toronto on November 7 featuring Dr. Norman Doidge, the author of the bestselling book The Brain That Changes Itself, which was the favourite book in the 2010 “The County Reads” event. More detail about the event is on the mybrainmatters.ca website.

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca