{"id":53442,"date":"2018-09-26T15:30:13","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T19:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=53442"},"modified":"2018-09-26T15:30:13","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T19:30:13","slug":"brock-students-to-help-seniors-keep-fit-through-new-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2018\/09\/brock-students-to-help-seniors-keep-fit-through-new-partnership\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock students to help seniors keep fit through new partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the quest to stay healthy and fit can come with its challenges at any age, a new set of obstacles tend to appear as people get older.<\/span><\/p>\n

Health issues creep in, movement gets difficult and flexibility becomes limited.<\/span><\/p>\n

But through a new commercial partnership, Brock University wants to help Niagara seniors take on those hurdles \u2014 and, in the process, study what works to keep them healthy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The University is collaborating with Wellness Suites Condominiums<\/span><\/a> to expand the SeniorFit<\/span><\/a> and Heart Strong<\/span><\/a> programs already offered at the Brock-Niagara Centre for Health and Well-Being in St. Catharines. The partnership will see Brock Kinesiology and Health Sciences students guiding senior residents of the Niagara Falls development through personalized exercise and rehabilitation programs on a path to healthy living.<\/span><\/p>\n

Currently under construction, the nine-storey Wellness Suites facility includes 97 residential units, a 5,500 square-foot Functional Medicine Centre designed to house Brock\u2019s programs, and numerous other amenities. The $31-million Main Street project is slated for completion in September 2019.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the Faculty has partnered with health and government agencies, as well as non-governmental and community organizations in the past, this entrepreneurial exercise is unique for Brock, said Faculty of Applied Health Sciences Dean Peter Tiidus.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a win-win situation,\u201d he said. \u201cIt takes us out into the community, gets students working with more local seniors and provides additional research opportunities in an important health field.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The partnership will provide valuable experiential education opportunities for students who are pursuing careers in rehabilitation, medicine, physiotherapy, kinesiology and other health-care professions, allowing them to develop skills by working in real-life situations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It will also allow Brock researchers to study how the facility\u2019s \u201cpersonalized medicine\u201d programs, which include assessing cognition, nutrition, genetics, hormones, bodily toxins and the microbiome of the gut, impact residents, said Wellness Suites President Dr. Nick Vaccaro.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will offer the latest, most innovative services and technology to help take care of people and to study how to keep them young as they\u2019re getting older,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Functional Medicine Centre will use bioinformatics \u2014 a field of science that combines biology, computer sciences, mathematics and statistics to analyze and interpret biological data \u2014 to assess and monitor the progress of clients, and see which lifestyle modifications are most effective.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an ideal fit for a graduate student project that would then be potentially publishable in a credible journal,\u201d Tiidus said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deborah O\u2019Leary, Health Sciences Professor and Director of the Brock-Niagara Centre for Health and Well-Being, is working with Vaccaro to design the space and determine the fitness and research-related equipment required for the facility.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNick is building his vision, but he\u2019s using Brock expertise to help him along the way,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs the current SeniorFit and Heart Strong programs have already been successful \u2014 helping 450 clients a year with health-related goals \u2014 it\u2019s a matter of expanding and introducing those programs in the new facility,\u201d Vaccaro said. \u201cWe want to grow with the University and expand research parameters into the genetic, molecular and cellular levels. We are currently working at partnering with other highly innovative diagnostic companies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wellness Suites is providing the capital, infrastructure and equipment for the project, with Brock providing its expertise and a co-ordinator for the physical rehabilitation centre and integration with other researchers at Brock.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that may lead to great collaborations with a similar model being used elsewhere in Niagara and beyond,\u201d Tiidus said. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to expand the offerings of the Health and Well-Being Centre for clients, for students and for researchers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Vaccaro has a long history of working with faculty members at the University during his 35-year career as a chiropractor in Niagara.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had this vision to partner with Brock for a long time \u2014 decades \u2014 and now\u2019s the time,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Details of Brock\u2019s programming at the facility are expected to be finalized by the end of 2018. For more information visit wellnesssuites.ca<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the quest to stay healthy and fit can come with its challenges at any age, a new set of obstacles tend to appear as people get older.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":53443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,7,3319,1,4],"tags":[831,6998,1512,7000,3198,6999,6997],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53442"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53444,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53442\/revisions\/53444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}