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Understanding the cultural landscape influencing nursing care for people living with dementia in Sub-Saharan Africa: An integrative literature review
Get PDFWith the rise, worldwide, in numbers of people rapidly surviving into older adulthood, the increasing prevalence of dementia has become a global public health priority of significance. The most alarming increase in dementia burden occurs in low and middle-income countries
(LMIC), especially in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). The purpose of this integrative review is to provide evidence-informed recommendations, based on the current literature that guides nurses practicing in SSA on how to safely care for people living with dementia. Cultural, social, and community perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes about dementia affect people living with dementia in profound ways. As such, culture-specific understandings need to be visible in the provision of quality nursing care across the diverse and complex landscape of urban and rural SSA. Whittemore and Knalf’s (2015) integrative literature review methodology and methods were used to conduct searches within CINAHL, PsycINFO, MEDLINE, and PubMed databases for relevant studies and systematic reviews by applying appropriate medical subject headings. Developed inclusion and exclusion criteria systematically guided the process of work through the literature search results. This process led to narrowing the focus of the body of literature and culminated in the selection of 17 peer-reviewed research articles of studies originating from seven SSA countries: Nigeria, South Africa (SA), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania. The set of articles were then each individually analyzed and collectively synthesized to answer the research question: How do cultural, social, and community perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes related to dementia affect people living with dementia and the quality of nursing care provided in Sub Saharan Africa? Four key themes emerged following the extraction of data from the articles: 1) nurses’ limited knowledge of how people live with dementia, especially with the cultural belief of dementia as witchcraft, 2) nurses’ misguided understanding of what help and health-seeking behaviors people experiencing dementia exhibit, 3) nurses’ lack of awareness of dementia-associated stigma and its influence on suffering and illness, and 4) nurses’ need for education related to the provision of nursing best practices when caring for people with dementia. The need for knowledge, understanding, awareness, and education for nurses caring for people living with dementia across Sub-Saharan African communities remains pertinent. There is also a need for these actions to extend deep into communities where traditional knowledge keepers, faith healers, and other healthcare professionals could be allies in supporting the pluralistic and collaborative provision of dementia care. Within SSA, nurses have the capacity to develop and implement low‐resourced nonpharmacological interventions to people living with dementia, and to partner with families in the achievement of patient-centered care. Nurses also have the capacity to provide leadership in orchestrating short and long-term initiatives that shift societal cultural and dementia understanding through practice, education, research, and policy recommendations
Molecular characterization of early adipose tissue fibrosis in the development of diet-induced obesity in mice
Get PDFObesity harms the health and quality of life of millions of people worldwide and places financial stress on patients and healthcare systems. The metabolic breakdown and development of disease, such as type 2 diabetes, that occurs with obesity has been shown to be largely driven by adipose tissue dysfunction resulting from adipose tissue hypoxia, adipocyte death, macrophage infiltration, and fibrosis. The early stage of adipose tissue fibrosis is poorly understood, particularly in female mice. To identify the initiating molecular changes in adipose tissue fibrosis we have measured the expression of a suite of molecular targets crucial to the development of adipose tissue inflammation and fibrosis in obesity including tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α; early inflammatory and insulin resistance driver), transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β; pro-fibrotic cytokine), collagen VI (abundant in fibrotic lesions), matrix metalloproteinase-14 (MMP-14; key extracellular matrix protease in adipose tissue), and tissue inhibitors of MMPs 1-4 (TIMPs 1-4; modulators of proteolytic activity). The first part of this work details the development of a murine model of diet-induced obesity, early insulin resistance, and adipose tissue fibrosis without diagnosable fibrotic build-up quantified with picrosirius red. The second part of this work shows early changes in the expression of key inflammatory and fibrotic components in adipose tissue, including mRNA upregulation of TNF-α, TGF-β, and collagen VI in both sexes, as well as upregulation of TIMP-1 in male mice and TIMP-4 in female mice. Collagen VI immunoreactivity in visceral adipose tissue is also increased, but only in males. These molecular changes are conducive to the development of a fibrotic milieu and represent the initiating steps in adipose tissue fibrosis. This work has improved our understanding of the molecular processes in obesity development and highlights potential targets for therapeutic intervention in the treatment of obesity and metabolic disease
Institute for Community Prosperity 2021-2022 Annual Report
Get PDFThe Institute for Community Prosperity seeks to embed collective social impact and innovation within post-secondary learning, and reciprocally to embed learning within community change. While the challenges we collectively face in The Long Emergency are immense, the opportunities to create new futures are equally abundant. This year's annual report focuses on three thematic fronts, each one outlining a cluster of co-curricular undergraduate and community-partnered learning programs and ‘products': Learning in the service of building a wellbeing economy, learning in the service of designing social purpose tech, and learning in the service of provoking systems change
Challenges and strategies for physical education teachers working with students on the autism spectrum
No full textThe context of this paper is set within my learning journey as an educator and student in the Master of Education program. During my career, I have taught Health and Physical Education to many students, including those on the autism spectrum. My passion for both physical and inclusive education has given me the insight and the desire to improve my practice. I have noticed that some students on the autism spectrum do not participate fully in health and physical education classes. Through my career, I have come to realize the importance of safe, fun, and engaging physical education experience for all students. Teachers need to understand autism spectrum disorder to teach students on the autism spectrum effectively. Designing and implementing a variety of strategies creates effective and positive learning experiences. The teacher’s educational philosophy centered on an ethic of care and inclusive practices, further enables the social, emotional, and physical growth of all students. Teachers have a significant responsibility to create a positive, caring, and inclusive learning environment to fully support the social, emotional, and physical development of their students on the autism spectrum. Social and emotional skills are tightly linked to the learning and physical development of students in physical education class. This paper is written for educators who want to create inclusive, caring, and positive educational environments, starting with their own philosophy of education, curriculum, strategies, and interventions to allow for students’ success. Creating intentional and meaningful learning environments will allow for the growth and development of all students, including those on the autism spectrum.Not peer reviewedcapstoneautism spectrum disorderinclusivephysical educationeducational philosophysocial and emotional skill
The Langara Voice - March 03, 2022
No full textThis issue of the Langara Voice includes cover stories "New president, new outlook," "No gear, no logo, no spirit," "Prof predicament," "Hopeful revival," and "Ripple effect.
Care Through Play, Anywhere: Designing Solutions For Digital Play Therapy
No full textSince the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many services and businesses have been transitioned online to avoid travel and exposure. A number of these timely adaptations started as a compromise, but are now expected to continue even after the pandemic is over. Telehealth and teletherapy were among the most prominent examples—as doctors, therapists, and counselors moved to deliver their services remotely. In the last week of March 2020, telehealth encounters in the United States increased by 154% compared to 2019 (Koonin et al., 2020, p. 1598).
As counseling sessions were made available from home, many saw the benefits of teletherapy, including increased accessibility, timeliness, convenience, continuity of care, and patients’ comfort of being in their own space. However, unlike conversation therapies, play therapies for children rely on the act of physical play and equipment such as toys and a sand tray. As a result, play therapists have been challenged in adapting to the current model of video-based teletherapy. Based on information gathered from the primary research with counselors and play therapists, most challenges are related to the reduced therapeutic quality due to the lack of support from technology, despite the amount of interest to include more digital tools in their practice.
To explore ways to solve these challenges, the researcher analyzed the data from interview sessions with the therapists and generated a list of design principles. Following these established principles, an iterative approach was initiated and included brainstorming, system mapping, wireframing, and a series of digital prototypes. Multiple possibilities of digital play therapy were explored with active participation and feedback from the professionals.Health care for childrenTeletherapyDigital transformationTherapis
Poetic·design: Revealing the tacit aesthetic frameworks in a furniture design practice
No full textThis research is an examination into the aesthetic values of a furniture design practice. In particular, I look at how my Chinese inheritance, my cultural and personal memory, and my assimilated tacit aesthetic values, find agency and expression through practice.
I arrived at this research by being immersed in the actual processes of creative design making. Through hands-on experience and application, I found the expressions and feelings I wanted to communicate. This manifested through a series of practices which included: lighting, material explorations, handcrafting, and my personal stories via varied methods and processes of design.
Moreover, I gave myself space and time, critically, for self reflection. This manner of thinking about design is derived from my personal background — I am driven by my personal journey towards becoming a more authentic version of myself as a furniture designer. I chose to do this through real discernment and detailed understanding of the aesthetics of material. Through the design of interior objects, materials that possess aesthetic agency provide me with the ability to transcribe a particular value in my work — I call this ‘the poetic’.
The poetic design in my research has two aspects:
1) the respect of nature and self in everyday aesthetics and
2) design rooted in a Xiuxing, or spiritually informed and embodied making practice.
It is about furniture design. It is about the home. It is about relating emotionally with the materials. It is about telling a story. It is about a journey. The character of design has been transformed into a method that assists me in building the conversation. I hope the journey that I have experienced, filtered through the lens of a poetic design method, can inspire or resonate with other designers or crafters who have similar cultural affiliations.
Coming from a maker's perspective, I see the integration of utilitarianism and aesthetics, representing the ecology of self and the ecology of a maker. Moreover, I aim to break the geometric brick of utilitarian design works, breaking formalities in the process. I actively seek asperity, irregularity, and imperfections within art, craft, and design, inspired in part by Wabi Sabi, the ancient Japanese tradition of slow life. In my research, I use a series of methods to explore a way of challenging perfection, machine manufacturing, and, ultimately, enjoying the moments of engagement with the materials. Through these tactics, the objective is to build an emotional connection between self and nature and use this design practice to come closer to myself. I experience the physical pleasures in sound, feeling, and movement, and enjoy seeing the irregularities of natural forms that correspond with the human body. The living form takes on its own breath, gaining freedom from the material substances.
Keywords:
Poetic Design, Aesthetics, Material Practice, Furniture Design, Oriental Design, XiuxingXiuxingPoetic designMaterial practiceOriental desig
Engaging middle school-aged students in the humanities using non-digital game-based learning
No full textThis paper is set within the context of my experience as a Grade 7 teacher in British Columbia and as a student in the Master of Education program. During my career, I have had the opportunity to teach Social Studies and Language Arts to students using non-digital game-based learning through an Ancient Civilization Simulation Game. Through my journey as an educator, I have come to realize that non-digital game-based learning provides a meaningful opportunity for middle school-aged students to learn about the humanities subjects in a way that is fun and collaborative. In this paper, I claim that non-digital game-based learning is the preferred pedagogical approach for teaching the humanities subjects to middle school-aged students because it is engaging, builds student collaboration and self-efficacy, and is accessible to all school communities. Evidence illustrates that game-based learning engages students in curricular material in an exciting format,student participation in non-digital game-based learning can lead to increased collaboration and self-efficacy, and that a non-digital game format can have the same benefits of game-based learning while being flexible to the needs of diverse classrooms and school communities.The claims demonstrating the strength of non-digital game-based learning as a pedagogical practice are further explored in my application, in which I share my experiences facilitating an Ancient Civilization Simulation Game in my Grade 7classroom. I advocate for a non-digital game-based learning approach to be used in the teaching of the humanities with all middle school-aged students.Capstonenon-digital game-based learninggame-based learningmiddle schoolhumanities educationsocial studieslanguage art
A New Resourcefulness
No full textThis thesis reflects on our relationships to the materials and objects that we are surrounded with, the agency they carry, as well as the responsibility we have to the places and communities we inhabit. This context makes way for a narrative on localization, circularity, and resiliency. A New Resourcefulness offers auto-ethnography woven throughout theory and design practice, as experienced in British Columbia, Canada.
Includes the essay: Ecological Restoration through Material Practice: Invasive Species as Resource, by Christa Clay and Chiara Schmitt (pp. 88 - 98).Interdisciplinary designMaterialPlaceResponsibilityRedirective practicesLocalizationCommunityCircularit