Multiple Sclerosis, Veins in the Brain, and Family Caregivers
February 8, 2011
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
[Download MP3] [itunes] [Bookmark Episode]
Guest Information
Episode Description
Ann Stewart is executive director/client services with the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, Lethbridge & District Chapter. Paul Zook’s wife, Kim, has secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. For her, the controversial treatment for chronic cerebro-spinal venous insufficiency seemed to offer some hope. Ann and Paul discuss the treatment from the perspectives of the Society and the family caregiver, and also from their own families’ experience. They describe what happened when the news of the treatment first broke, and how they and others reacted to it. They explain the questions that then confronted and still do confront family caregivers and their family members. They discuss the findings so far from medical research into the treatment. They talk about their own hopes for the research. They examine their own perspectives on the treatment. They say what more they want to see done to help family caregivers caring for a family member with multiple sclerosis.
Family Caregivers Unite!
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Variety Channel
Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.
