Trail Riding in Powell River for People with Mobility Challenge
September 30, 2014
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
CC Duncan and Raymond Lavoie founded The Powell River Mobility Opportunities Society, http://www.prmos.org, in 2010. They were inspired by beautiful landscapes and opportunities for outdoor activities in British Columbia, Canada. They talk about their lives, careers and experiences with family caregiving. They explain why they created the Society, and describe its work. They describe TrailRiders, the ways these are used, the types of trails these are used for, and the people who provide their human power. They discuss the types of mobility challenges TrailRiders serve and accommodate. They give examples of benefits that TrailRiders bring to people with physical and mental ability challenges. They say what more they would like to do and see done to promote Powell River Mobility Opportunities Society and the use of TrailRiders. They share their message for family caregivers who are wondering if one of their family members with a mobility challenge would benefit from TrailRiders.
Family Caregivers Unite!
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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.
