view . summer 2011
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PRESERVING THE DIGNITY OF THOSE
WITH DEMENTIA
By 2034, more than one million Canadians will be
living with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia.
Deciding how to care for them will require a great deal of
foresight, says Lorna de Witt, an award-winning researcher
in the Faculty of Nursing who is laying the groundwork for
a cultural shift in the way society views that challenge.
“We need to learn how to value and respect the perspective
of the person who will be most affected by these decisions,”
says Dr. de Witt, co-investigator in the Partnerships in Dementia
Care Alliance, a $1.8-million study funded by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The alliance’s aim
is to create a culture shift in long-term care, away from one that
stigmatizes people with dementia and provides few opportunities
for participation in decision-making by those directly involved.
“The most important thing is that the care of people
with Alzheimer’s and dementia will be improved,” says de
Witt, winner of her faculty’s research award for 2010-11.
PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM ROAD
INJURIES
In 2006, 95 children died and more than 13,300 were
seriously injured in traffic accidents in Canada.
Dr. Anne Snowdon, a business professor with a nursing
background, is working to reduce them by focusing on
the most vulnerable users of our roads: child pedestrians,
children on bikes and in cars.
Snowdon will lead interdisciplinary research teams
that will investigate pedestrian and cycle crashes in detail,
create computer simulations of them and establish a virtual
laboratory for testing more child occupant and pedestrian-
friendly safety products.
The team will develop and test interventions, and
innovative safety product designs for commercialization in
order to reduce the frequency and severity of injuries for
children in road crashes. They hope gathering empirical
evidence will lead to changes in road infrastructure, road
user behaviour, vehicle design and after-crash care to
reduce the number of injuries and child deaths.
The Team in Traffic and Road Injury Prevention (TRIP)
program for Canadian children received more than $1.7 million
in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research,
in partnership with the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council, AUTO21 and the University of Windsor.
RECREATING WETLANDS IN OIL SANDS OF
ALBERTA
For years, petroleum companies have profited from
the Alberta oil sands. Today, they are discovering
the value in working with UWindsor researchers on
restoring the landscapes they’ve mined back to their
original conditions.
UWindsor researchers Jan Ciborowski, Chris Weisener
and Alice Grgicak-Mannion work with oil companies in the
Fort McMurray, Alta., area to help them transform mined-
out pits into healthy wetland ecosystems.
Photo courtesy of the Chilliwack Times
