Euro Health Care and Fitness Summit September 01-03, 2015 Valencia, Spain

Takako Nakanishi has completed her Registered Nurse degree from Bell Land General Hospital in Japan, and Certified Nurse in Palliative Care from Japanese Nursing Association. She is a staff of Palliative Care Unit in NHOKMCCCC and a Lecturer at the Kure Nursing School. As for cancer counseling, she has published one paper in English and one book for citizen in Japanese.

In Japan, the Cancer Control Act was passed in 2006. Consequently, our center has been proactively conducting palliative care promotions. Concerning health insurance coverage, the “Cancer Counseling Fee” became payable for health insurance remuneration as of April 2010. The cancer counseling fee covers the service provided to patients diagnosed with malignant tumors in an environment with sufficient consideration of their psychological states. Physicians with experience in cancer treatment and full-time nurses with experience with cancer patients collaborate to explain and consult with patients to allow them to select a line of treatment upon full understanding of and consent to diagnoses and treatment methods. At our center, cancer patients are offered cancer counseling in all clinical departments and an explanation by a pathologist in a pathology clinic plays an important role in performing well-organized cancer counseling. When explaining the diagnosis to patients in the pathology clinic, the pathologist also attends to the patients’ emotions while listening to their anxieties and empathizing with their pain. Patients that accurately understand the conditions of their illness and the treatment’s policies and effects are more likely to consent to the explanation by the attending physician and proactively accept the standard therapy by the attending physician, which increases medical compliance. The combination of the explanation by a pathologist in the pathology

Mélanie Levasseur completed her Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy at McGill University, a Master and Doctorate in Clinical research at the Université de Sherbrooke and a Postdoctoral fellowship in health promotion at the Institute of Public Health Research, Université de Montréal. Her research focuses on the social integration and participation of older people living at home, and interventions to promote health, including awareness of safe driving. She is a Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRQ-S) Junior 1 Researcher (#26815). She has published more than 45 papers in reputed journals and has been guest speaker in up to 45 events.

Objective: This study aimed to explore facilitators, barriers and needs to the use of compensatory driving strategies, i.e. conscious means used to adjust for diminished abilities, which can optimize the community mobility of older drivers. Methods: An exploratory qualitative clinical research design was conducted with 11 older drivers, 7 relatives and 14 driving professionals. Five focus group discussions were audio recorded, transcribed and analyzed. Results: Facilitators to the use of strategies are being a woman; perceiving dangers, usefulness of strategies and abilities as diminished; having disabilities or discomfort when driving; experiencing complex driving situations; receiving interventions of relatives and professionals; and having other transportation options. Barriers were unawareness of strategies; pride; lack of self-criticism; reluctance to intervene of relatives and physicians; costs; importance given to driving; complexity of using other transportation options; and lack of proximity to facilities and services. Increasing awareness with TV, radio, newspapers and information sessions about aging changes, community resources, compensatory strategies and their importance for safe driving could foster their use. Furthermore, to support older drivers in changing their driving habits and using compensatory strategies, it is important to involve their relatives and professionals. Conclusion: While promoting safe driving and the prevention of collisions and injuries on the roads, knowledge about facilitators and barriers to compensatory driving strategies could ultimately allow seniors to optimize their community mobility.

Jingqin Wu has completed her PhD in 2009 from the University of Sydney and is a Research Fellow at the Universtiy of Newcastle, Australia. She specialises in genome-wide association and transcriptome analyses of schizophrenia and infectious dieseases (HIV and HCV). She is a NHMRC early carrer fellow and has published more than 35 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of Austin Virology and Retro Virology.

Long-term antipsychotic treatment for schizophrenia is often associated with the emergence of tardive dyskinesia (TD) and TD presence is also accompanied by more severe cognitive impairment. Oxidative stress-induced damage may be involved in the development of TD and contribute to cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. We examined the role of oxidative stress in relation to TD and cognitive deficits in schizophrenia using plasma manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) as a biomarker. We recruited 83 male chronic patients with (n=32) and without TD (n=51) meeting DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia and 58 male control subjects. We examined the repeatable battery for the assessment of neuropsychological status (RBANS) and MnSOD activity for all subjects. Positive and negative symptom scale (PANSS) and the abnormal involuntary movement scale (AIMS) were assessed in the patients. MnSOD activity was lower in patients with TD than non-TD and either TD or non-TD group had lower MnSOD levels than controls (all p<0.05). Patients with TD had lower RBANS total (p<0.05) and Visuospatial/Constructional subscale scores than non-TD patients (p<0.01) and either TD or non-TD group scored lower than the controls on all RBANS subscales (all p<0.001) except for the Visuospatial/Constructional index. Multiple regression analysis showed that in either TD or non-TD group, MnSOD was an independent contributor to the RBANS total score (both p<0.05). These findings suggest that TD patients suffered oxidative stress and cognition impairment at a more severe level than non-TD patients. Oxidative stress might serve as a functionally linking node between TD development and cognition dysfunction in schizophrenia.

Isabel Fernández is a PhD student at the Department of Sport Sicences of the Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sport Sciences Blanquerna (Ramon Llull University). Assistant professor of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Blanquerna. Practicum management in the Physical Therapy degree.

During adolescence, teens often struggle with their body changes, mood swings and social issues. Preventative healthcare habits should be the corner stone of their health in the future. Recent studies show that in this stage there is a decrease in physical activity (PA) levels, along with high rates of overweight and obesity. Objective. The aim of the study was to assess PA levels and their physical condition (PC) related to perceived barriers (PB) and limiting factors of PA practice in a sample of a teenage population, considering a stratified sample of the dichotomy of being overweight. The secondary aim was to replicate the results depending on the gender. Methods. Cross-sectional study. One hundred and forty three adolescents (46.2% boys and 53.8% girls; median age of 15 years) of Secondary Education (ESO) in public schools of a randomized district (Sants – Montjuich) in the city of Barcelona. Variables assessed were: (a) PC (ALPHA-Fitness); (b) PA levels (Physical Activity Questionnaire PAQ-A); and (c) perceived barriers (Self-Report of Physical Exercise Barriers Questionnaire). Subsequently, the different variables were tested calculating means and standard deviations by the presence of overweight and according to the sex of the adolescents. The means between groups were compared with Student’s t test. Results. After dichotomization of the body mass index (BMI) variable, according to the classification of categorical weight established by the World Health Organization, were grouped into: 1) absence of adolescents with overweight (70.6%, 101 teenagers) and 2) the presence of adolescents with overweight or obesity (29.4%, 42 teenagers). The PC levels of those adolescents who were overweight or obese, tend to be significantly lower (p-value < 0.05) than those who not. Even so, no significant differences (p-value > 0.05) were found between groups for what they mean to the PA levels. Referring to the barriers, those that were related to the body images as well as to the physical and social anxiety were significantly (p-value < 0.05) different perceived by the group of adolescents with overweight; giving to them more importance. The results by sex showed how the PC and the PA levels of males were significantly higher (p – value < 0.05) than the female’s results. As expected, girls gave significantly higher (p-value < 0.05) perception to the barrier of image as well as the score of barriers for fatigue-laziness. Discussion and Conclusions: Significant differences in most results indicate that there is a relationship between being overweight or obese and worse PC levels. The variable sex (being a girl) and body mass index (being overweight or obese) have a significant direct relationship to perceiving major barriers to PA practice.

Pier-Luc Turcotte has completed his occupational therapy undergraduate studies at Université de Sherbrooke and is now pursuing a master’s degree in community health sciences at the Research Centre on Aging of the University Institute of Geriatrics of Sherbrooke. He received scholarships from the Fonds de la recherche du Québec – Santé (grant no. 31662) and the Canadian Occupational Therapy Foundation.

Participation in fitness and social activities is a determinant of successful aging and enables older adults to stay in their homes and be integrated into the community. Although meeting participation needs involves older adults, their caregivers and healthcare providers, little is known about their respective viewpoints. This study thus explored the perceived, met and unmet participation needs of older adults having disabilities as seen by the older adults themselves, their caregivers and healthcare providers. A qualitative multiple case study consisted of conducting 33 semi-structured interviews in eleven triads, each composed of an older adult, his/her caregiver and a healthcare provider recruited in community health settings in Canada. Interview transcripts and reviews of clinical records were analyzed using content analysis and descriptive statistics based on thematic saliency analysis methods. Participation needs reported by each triad included all domains of participation. Needs related to daily activities, such as personal care, nutrition, and housing, were generally met. Regarding social activities, few needs were met by various resources in the community and were generally limited to personal responsibilities, including making decisions and managing budgets, and some community life activities, such as going shopping. Unmet needs were mainly related to social activities, involving leisure, other community life activities and interpersonal relationships, and some daily activities, including fitness and mobility. This study highlights the complexity of older adults’ participation needs, where fitness and social activities were mostly unmet although important. Properly assessing and addressing these needs is thus necessary to improve older adults’ health and well-being.