Barb Pesut, UBC nursing professor and Canada Research Chair in Health, Ethics and Diversity

Canada Research Chair Barb Pesut participates in study with academic and practicing nurses

Nursing research at UBC’s Okanagan campus will be an integral part of a four-year province-wide initiative aimed at improving palliative care services in BC. The overall project is funded through an $800,000 grant from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.

According to a recent study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, almost three quarters of British Columbians who die are not identified as people who could benefit from services associated with palliative care. A province-wide network called the Initiative for a Palliative Approach in Nursing: Evidence and Leadership (iPANEL) will examine ways of offering palliative services in areas such as long-term care, acute medical wards and at home.

Through research, iPANEL will create knowledge about how nurses can further integrate palliative philosophies and services into a variety of care settings.

UBC nursing researcher Barb Pesut, Canada Research Chair in Health, Ethics and Diversity, and Barbara McLeod, a clinical nurse specialist from Fraser Health Authority, lead one of three principal areas of research called Educating for a Palliative Approach, which involves how to best prepare nurses, taking into account their work environments and skill mix.

“Care for those with chronic life-limiting illness is an important part of an overall health strategy for British Columbians,” says Pesut. “Nurses have the necessary skills to provide people with a high level of compassionate palliative care.

“Our goal is to establish education programs and clinical practices by gathering evidence that is relevant, useful and well-communicated to both practicing and academic nurses,” says Pesut.

Elisabeth Antifeau represents Interior Health on iPANEL as a practitioner co-investigator in the area of Patient and Family-Centred Improvements. “We’re looking into practical opportunities for nurses to work with patients who have life-limiting illness,” says Antifeau. “By creating a continuous flow of knowledge between clinical nursing practice and nursing research, we’ll ensure front-line staff know when to hold conversations on future care and what those conversations should entail. Ultimately the patient and family care experience will benefit.”

iPANEL is a partnership of health authorities, including the Interior Health Authority, universities and the BC Ministry of Health. This leading research and clinical practice partnership is led by Dr. Kelli Stajduhar of the University of Victoria and Carolyn Tayler of Fraser Health.

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UBC’s Okanagan campus School of Nursing is building on a foundation of community engagement and global development work to offer students a full, interdisciplinary course of study for both undergraduate and graduate students.

With record first-year enrolment of 122 students from across Canada, the School of Nursing will have 454 students across its four-year program in 2011-12, the highest number ever. There are more opportunities for graduate and collaborative research and interdisciplinary study so students can gain an essential understanding of people within the context of health and healing.

This year UBC also begins partnering with Okanagan College (OC) to educate nurses in the Interior. The college will see 24 nurses admitted into its new Department of Nursing. These students will take their first two years at OC and will transfer to UBC’s Okanagan campus to join third and fourth-year students to complete their Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). The BSN also has access points for Licensed Practical Nurses and Registered Nurses who want to complete a baccalaureate degree in nursing.

The school is also engaged in community development work that includes student placements in Ghana and Zambia and continues faculty development and collaboration with the Royal Institute of Nursing in Batala, Punjab, India.

The School of Nursing offers a supportive admission program for Aboriginal students that provides mentoring and support to Aboriginal nursing students, working with Aboriginal Services to create better pathways for Aboriginal students to enter the program and be successful.

Nurses can carry their education further through the Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) program. The objectives of the MSN program are to cultivate leadership, enhance theoretical knowledge, develop scholarly inquiry and scholarship and advance the professional practices of baccalaureate nurses.

Among other technology improvements, another high-fidelity human patient simulator has been added so that students can learn within a human patient simulation program that has been fully integrated into the curriculum.

There will be a change in leadership in November with new director Patricia Marck and associate director Sheila Epp beginning their roles.  This will enable acting director Jeanette Vinek to return to a teaching role.

Jeanette Vinek

“The School of Nursing is committed to improving students’ experience.  We have developed a strong partnership with the Learning Center to provide tutorials specific to nursing classes and we provide undergraduate teaching assistant opportunities to work with first-year students in the nursing lab.  We work closely with the Global Nursing Citizens Committee, which is a student led/driven club that works with communities in Ghana and Zambia. We also have strong ties to the Nursing Course Union.  We provide opportunities for our students to volunteer in the Health Fair on campus. This year, we will have students volunteering at the campus flu clinic.  We have a very strong teaching faculty that is committed to educating nurses.

“We see our students as our family. We are co-learners, providing new and innovative opportunities in clinical practice and we are provincial leaders in integrating human patient simulation experiences into the Nursing curriculum.”

— Acting Director Jeanette Vinek

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Frailty and inability to complete daily chores a risk for those who are inactive

Active, physically fit seniors are less frail, better able to care for themselves and live independently longer than those with a sedentary lifestyle, according to research findings at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus.

The Healthy Exercise and Aging Lab (HEAL) Group at UBC’s Institute for Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention has released a paper demonstrating a link between frailty and loss of functional independence in seniors.

Upwards of 90 per cent of older Canadians live with chronic disease conditions, more than 40 per cent report a level of disability and more than 50 per cent of older adults exhibit preliminary signs of frailty, according to Health Canada.

However, while disability and illness are part of the aging process, they are not directly responsible for making seniors frail and unable to complete daily living tasks, the UBC research concludes.

“What is overlooked is the contribution that physical fitness has on functional dependence,” says researcher Jennifer Jakobi, an assistant professor with UBC’s faculty of Health and Social Development.

“It is the loss of physical fitness which makes simple daily tasks, like rising from a chair, house-cleaning chores and climbing stair almost impossible to do without becoming overly winded and fatigued,” adds  Jakobi. “Evidence shows that fit seniors make fewer demands on health-care systems and require less support than those who are frail.”

The HEAL research group used both laboratory and field-based performance measures to better understand and accurately map the fitness factors of independent aging.

In a related finding, the research determined that there are sex-related differences between older men and women, which may explain why women become frail earlier than men. The study focused on the onset of Parkinson’s disease in seniors, indicating that women are 10 times more likely to become frail than men of the same age when both genders have Parkinson’s.

“Earlier diagnosis and treatment intervention such as exercise will reduce the impact of age-associated functional decline experienced by older men and women,” says HEAL researcher Gareth Jones, an assistant professor with UBC’s faculty of Health and Social Development.

Ultimately, these tools may be used by clinicians in the future to diagnose frailty or PD stages in both men and women.

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