Improving the Health of Canadians

Giving Patients a Voice in Arthritis Research

The Canadian Arthritis Network’s patient-driven approach to arthritis is resulting in more targeted and effective treatments to this debilitating disease. The network’s Consumer Advisory Council, whose members each have some form of arthritis, participate on every CAN committee and in the peer-review process to ensure that research projects meet the most urgent needs of the nearly 4.5 million Canadians with arthritis.

Your Chances of Surviving a Stroke Are Getting Better

The Canadian Stroke Network is working with nurses and other health groups across Canada to advance the Canadian Stroke Strategy – a national plan to ensure access to organized stroke care across the country. The CSN has also launched major initiatives to educate people to recognize when a stroke is occurring and the importance of getting treatment within the first three hours. Other campaigns are raising awareness of sodium levels in food and helping people to make healthy food choices.

Making Surgery Less Invasive

The Canadian Institute for Photonic Innovations has pioneered a new type of laser surgery that cuts through soft and hard tissue with no damage. The discovery resulted in a new spin-off company, AttoDyne, which is marketing ultra-fast lasers for medical use well as for semiconductor and solar panel fabrication.

At the Centre for Surgical Invention and Innovation, space technology company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates has partnered with St.  Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and medical robotics experts at McMaster University to design the world’s smallest, most affordable and flexible robotics system for medical surgery. It will mean less post-operative pain, fewer complications, quicker recovery and shorter hospital stays for patients.

Helping Hospitals Produce Their Own Isotopes

The TRIUMF-managed Advanced Applied Physics Solutions is helping industry help hospitals produce their own medical isotopes and deliver personalized medicine to people suffering from cancer, neurological or cardiac diseases. Promising technologies include desktop-sized cyclotrons, which would enable hospitals to generate their own medical isotopes for diagnostics and therapeutics.