Health Committee on Oct. 5th, 2011

[Kim Elmslie]

Certainly the results of that study are going to be foundational to decisions about what we need to do going forward.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Okay. That's fair enough. That's what I wanted to know.

Will the government commit to an “International Year of the Brain”? This was a motion that was passed here. Will we commit to that in order to raise awareness? There are big conferences coming in the next two years and there is partnering with Europe. Will the government commit to that?

[Kim Elmslie]

I don't know the answer to that.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Okay.

Coming back to Alzheimer's and dementia—as you know, worldwide, governments are concerned with the rising tide of dementia. Some 500,000 Canadians have Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia; 71,000 are under the age of 65, and women account for about 72%.

Today, every five minutes someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The human cost is enormous, the economic cost is about $15 billion, and in 30 years we're looking at $153 billion. We know if we could merely slow the onset of dementia by two years for each affected Canadian, we could see a return on investment of about 15,000% over a 30-year research effort.

So I'd like to know, what research for Alzheimer's disease is the government investing in?

[Kim Elmslie]

Okay, good question. Let me see if I have that number with me…. I may have it, which would be great.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

How long is this for, and is it patient-centred?

[Kim Elmslie]

There may be some aspects of that I'll need to get back to you on.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Kim, would it be possible to table all that information with the committee?

[Kim Elmslie]

I will do that. That will make it much easier.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Yes, I think so. As much information as you can give us on what the research funding is, for how long, and what its aspects are.

One of the things the stakeholders have been asking for is will the government be investing in support and education for caregivers?

[Kim Elmslie]

Okay. I'm going to take all of that information back and table a response with the committee.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Okay. Will the government invest in a navigation system to guide families through the complex health care system? If you have a neurological disease—Alzheimer's, dementia—it is next to impossible to navigate the health care system. Will the government be investing in a navigator system?

[Kim Elmslie]

There's a lot of interest in and work going on around patient navigation for a number of diseases, Alzheimer's being one of them, cardiovascular disease being another. Conversations are going on about patient navigation and where it fits. I will undertake to find out more about the work that's going on in patient navigation as well.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Could you table that information with the committee as well?

[Kim Elmslie]

Yes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

If I could just have those answers, that would be terrific.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Absolutely.

So to clarify, Ms. Elmslie, you're going to get that information and send it to the clerk. She will distribute it to all the members and Ms. Duncan in order to make sure that everyone has that very important information.

Thank you so much.

[Kim Elmslie]

My pleasure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Now we'll go to Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you as well to our witnesses for being here.

I want to follow up on where my colleague left off. I believe he was asking a question about prevention and promotion. I guess it can be overwhelming to contemplate the broad range of issues that do need to be considered in creating the conditions for healthy aging, as you mentioned, and addressing the increasing rates of chronic disease in seniors.

You mentioned in your report that chronic diseases continue to be the major health burden of our time. Can you describe for me what the federal government is doing to help seniors prevent and manage chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer, or arthritis? How does your agency work with different groups to ensure that seniors are able to manage, and often able to prevent, these chronic diseases?

[Kim Elmslie]

I think I'll start by saying that with regard to what the agency does to help seniors prevent and manage chronic diseases, we do that in partnership with a variety of other organizations--I mentioned some of them--but also, of course, and really importantly, with the provinces and territories.

We find that we can be most helpful in bringing information to the table around what works in prevention and what are the effective practices. For instance, the guidelines for physical activity for seniors provides a really good basis on which other organizations can develop their own programs.

Falls prevention is an area where the agency has invested considerable time and resources. If seniors are concerned about falling, they can't be active, can't be part of their communities. Developing falls prevention curricula, for example, where we are ensuring that health professionals are getting trained, ensuring that caregivers are getting information, and ensuring that seniors themselves are aware of what they can do to prevent falls, has been a really fundamental piece of the work we've done.

I'll come back to the age-friendly communities example, because I think it's a really good one in the context of the whole-of-society approach to prevention that I referenced earlier in my remarks. When communities are engaging seniors and when seniors are involved in helping plan the services and supports they need, then they're able to participate actively in their communities.

We were very heartened to see, when we read the report on seniors by Dr. David Butler-Jones, that seniors are reporting that they're in good health, they're engaged in their community, and they're feeling included, all of those things. The initiative for age-friendly communities is one that spreads that possibility much more broadly. We've been very much focused on measuring the outcomes in age-friendly communities so that, again, we can share good data and therefore convince others of the value of applying these approaches in their own communities. Working with the seniors council through our minister's role, with the HRSDC minister, also allows us to bring health issues to the table and engage seniors at that policy level in helping to shape the policy agenda going forward.

I would also say that issues around seniors and seniors health get embedded into all of our programs. Our surveillance programs look at seniors health. Our prevention programs focus on what we can be doing to better equip seniors. We ask this question as a lens on everything we do.

That group in the population is always front of mind to us. They are not only recipients of services, they're also providing services themselves--in the work they do in their own communities, in the ways they teach younger people about how to live in our country and the joy they get from that role.

So we bring a lot of the social side of health into how we deal with seniors issues in our programs.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much.

I'm glad you mentioned the age-friendly communities approach. I was actually going to ask you about this. I do agree that, as you've mentioned, seniors have been and continue to be vital contributors to our communities.

You also mentioned the attending of a UN meeting and the discussions that were held there. You underscored the importance of partnerships, certainly partnerships with our provinces and territories. But I'm not quite clear in terms of the exact sort of entry into them.

How does your agency actually partner with a province or a territory? Who do you contact in that province or territory? I know that health systems look a little different from province to province. Perhaps you could expand on that a little bit. Then perhaps you could even talk about the partnerships internationally that we may have in order to gain a better understanding of some best practices.

[Kim Elmslie]

Sure.

On the issue of how we partner with provinces and territories, when the Public Health Agency of Canada was created, an entity called the Pan-Canadian Public Health Network was created. That council is a partnership of the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. The council really does provide the entry point for us into discussions with our provincial and territorial colleagues, and it focuses its efforts on three main areas.

It focuses on healthy living, which obviously includes chronic disease prevention. It focuses on infectious disease prevention and control, and it focuses on building public health capacity. Of course all those intersect with each other, but because we have the chief public health officers or the assistant deputy ministers of provincial and territorial governments around that table, that provides us with the pan-Canadian forum for setting priorities, understanding each other's perspectives, and advancing important joint frameworks or joint agendas to move forward.

A really good example of that is we have developed with our provincial and territorial colleagues a framework for action on overweight and obesity in children. That is a joint effort of FPT governments moving forward together using the levers that are appropriate in each of our jurisdictions to prevent childhood obesity and to share across the country the most effective policies and programs so all jurisdictions can benefit.

On the issue of international partnerships--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Ms. Elmslie, I have to go to the next one.

We're now going into the five-minute round, and we'll start with Ms. Quach.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the two witnesses for this information. I have several questions to ask. First, I would like to focus on the strategy for prevention and for the promotion of healthy lifestyles for seniors.

Have you planned to create spaces where people can improve their health and be more active in their communities on a daily basis? We know that prevention among young people involves additional physical and extracurricular activities at school. Will similar activities be offered for seniors in partnership with the provinces, territories and municipalities?