General News
Proposed Reforms of CIHR Programs and Peer Review17/02/2012
CIHR is proposing reforms and enhancements of programs and the peer review process.
CLICK HERE to visit the CIHR website for more information.
Canadian Sleep Society: Annual General Meeting 03/02/2012
DATE: Monday, June 11, 5:00 to 8:30 PM
VENUE: Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston St. Boston, MA 02116
ROOM: LLA Lower Level A
(A 7 minute walk from the APSS conference venue, John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center)
Snacks will be provided
ATS 2012 03/02/2012
The ATS 2012 highlights brochure includes a special section for sleep professionals and covers all the new features of the Society’s International Conference, the keynote speakers, postgraduate courses, and year in review sessions.
Findings about sleep and cancer from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study, the connection between sleep and metabolic disorders from European Sleep Cohort Study and how sleep and heart failure interact from the German study SchlaHF will be presented.
ATS 2012 will be held in San Francisco, May 18 to 23. No other meeting provides as much information about how the science of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine is changing clinical practice in the United States and globally.
South African Society of Sleep Medicine Congress 03/02/2012
The South African Society of Sleep Medicine (SASSM – www.sassm.org) will be having its bi-annual Congress from November 8th – 11th, 2012 in Durban, South Africa.
Student/technologist abstract award competition open! 25/01/2012
The competition for the CSS Student and Technologist award for the best abstract submitted is now open!!!
• The competition is open to students (pre-doctoral only) and technologists who are members of the CSS at the time of submission. The deadline for submission is February 24th, 2012.
• A candidate must be first author on the submitted abstract. Please visit www.canadiansleepsociety.com in the ‘News’ section, under ‘Awards’ for details of submission.
• One student abstract and one technologist abstract will be selected by the Selection Committee. In case of a tie in either category, two prizes may be awarded. If no scientifically acceptable entries are received in one category (Student or Technologist), a second prize will be given in the other category, if appropriate.
• EACH RECIPIENT WILL RECEIVE $300 AND A FREE TWO-YEAR MEMBERSHIP TO THE CSS.
• Winners will be notified by April 16th, 2012. Awards will be presented at the CSS Annual General Meeting which will be held during the conference SLEEP in Boston next June.
CLICK HERE for more information, and how to apply.
Good luck to all!
Célyne H. Bastien, Ph.D.
CSS VP Research
ATS 2012 International Conference 23/01/2012
ATS 2012 International Conference
May 18-23, 2012
San Francisco, California
CALL FOR LATE-BREAKING SCIENTIFIC ABSTRACTS
CLICK HERE for more information.
Untreated insomnia risks other health woes23/01/2012
CBC News
Untreated insomnia risks other health woes
Published January 20, 2012 4:31 PM EDT
Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder but it often goes untreated, which increases the risk for anxiety, depression and heart failure, a review concludes.
Doctors and other health-care providers should routinely ask patients about sleep problems, said the paper’s co-author, Charles Morin from Laval University in Quebec City.
CLICK HERE view this and other sleep-related news stories.
CIHR-CSS Travel Awards 13/01/2012
CIHR-CSS Travel Awards
The ICHR-CSS Travel awards will now be offered through Researchnet. All applications will thus have to be completed through this web platform. Please make sure to mark your calendar as the next round for 2012 deadline is January 30th. You can visit www.researchnet-recherchenet.ca to complete you’re the travel awards forms and the following link for a definition of trainee.
ISRC-SCS Bourses de voyage
Les bourses de voyage IRSC-ISRC seront maintenant offertes sous ‘Researchnet’. Toutes les demandes devront donc être complétées à partir de cette plateforme web. SVP, prenez bien note que le prochain concours de 2012 a pour date limite le 30 janvier. Vous pouvez visiter www.researchnet-recherchenet.ca afin de compléter vos demandes de bourses et le site suivant pour une définition de ‘stagiaire’.
CIHR Young Investigators Forum 2012 19/12/2011
The Young Investigators (YI) forum is a major training and education initiative of the Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health (ICRH) and its many partners. Young investigators (e.g. undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, clinician trainees, and junior faculty) are the focus of this event and are given the opportunity to:
Date: June 4-6 2012
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
CIHR Travel awards to attend the YI Forum are now available.
Hurry, the deadline to apply is January 30th, 2012!
For more information, please visit the website at:
www.yiforumjc.ca
Recipient of WSF lifetime contribution award 12/10/2011
Professor Jacques Montplaisir, University of Montreal, receives international recognition with the World Sleep Federation lifetime contribution award.
The World Sleep Federation recently established a new award program to coincide with its quadrennial congress. The inaugural presentation of these awards is scheduled to occur during the Worldsleep 2011 meeting in Kyoto, Japan. One of the award categories is the senior career award for ‘lifetime contribution’ to sleep research and sleep medicine. The World Sleep Federation is presenting two such awards, to individuals who:
1) are universally recognised by multiple national societies as an outstanding scientist, teacher and leader;
2) promote international dialogue through collaborative research and development of clinical, research or public health guidelines;
3) ensure the future of sleep sciences and medicine through active training of future scientists and/or sleep medicine physicians; and
4) have made a fundamental difference to sleep research and or sleep medicine.
Professor Montplaisir has been selected as a recipient of this award for his outstanding contributions to the sleep field.
Harvard CME event 12/10/2011
CLICK HERE for more information.
Click to downlaod PDF brochure
Course Directors: Charles A. Czeisler, PhD, MD, FRCP and Laura K. Barger, PhD; Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School; and Division of Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115 USA.
This course is designed to address the needs of practicing health care professionals, postgraduate medical education program directors, department chairs, academic medical center administrators, hospital administrators and risk managers in healthcare institutions involved in designing round-the-clock work schedules and implementing effective fatigue risk management programs for health care delivery systems.
The course will consist of an intensive series of lectures and workshops over a four-day interval interspersed with hands-on interactive training in the use of software modelling tools that will enable participants to evaluate the impact of work-schedule design on performance and patient safety.
February 20-24, 2012 at The Westin Casuarina Resort & Spa, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
Online course registration is available at: cme.hms.harvard.edu/courses/workhours
Course venue/hotel information is available at: starwoodmeeting.com/Book/harvardcayman
ACCREDITATION
The Harvard Medical School is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The Harvard Medical School designates this live activity for a maximum of 28.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Course Attendees Only: This activity meets the criteria for 9 hours of Risk Management credit(s) in Massachusetts. Risk management credit(s) were determined based on criteria outlined by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine. Please check with your individual state licensing board requirements before claiming risk management credit(s). This course would meet the requirements of the State of
Pennsylvania Board of Medicine for specific CME credits in the area of patient safety and/or risk management.
The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada recognizes conferences and workshops held outside of Canada that are developed by a university, academy, hospital, specialty society or college as accredited group learning activities.
Should participants in the Royal Australasian College of Physicians MyCPD Program wish to claim credits for attending this Continuing Professional Development course, they would claim them under Category 2: Group Learning Activities at 1 credit per hour.
Canadian Sleep/Circadian Research Network forum 04/10/2011
Canadian Sleep/Circadian Research Network
Visit this group
Invitations to the Canadian Sleep/Circadian Research Network forum will be sent to all Canadian Sleep Society Members.
This group is designed to facilitate discussion among Canadian researchers with respect to development of a potential proposal to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The proposal would request funding for a Canadian research network related to sleep and circadian rhythms research.
2011 Award Winners 30/05/2011
During the AGM at the 5th Conference of the Canadian Sleep Society (CSS) held in Quebec City, September 10-14 2011, the CSS honoured various members of the society.
These included winners of the different students competitions - the Abstract Award, Outstanding Student (based on a first-author paper) and the CSS/CIHR-ICRH Travel Awards.
The Broughton Award Young Investigator award winner was Dr. Robyn Stremler.
The CSS was also proud to acknowledge the lifetime contribution to the field of sleep research and education of two Distinguished Scientist Awardees - Dr Meir Kryger and Dr Ben Rusak.
The CSS wishes to again sincerely congratulate all 2011 recipients!
Photo caption (from left to right) at the Canadian Sleep Society conference in Quebec City, September 2011:
Alexandra Duchesne-Pérusse (CSS/ICRH travel award), Émilie Fortier-Brochu (Outstanding student), Vincent Moreau (CSS/ICRH travel award), Marjolaine Lafortune (Abstract award), Célyne Bastien (CSS VP Research), Ben Rusak (Distinguished scientist), Meir Kryger (Distinguished scientist), Helen Driver (CSS President), Ryan Renn (Abstract award), Ari Shechter (Outstanding student).
CLICK HERE to visit the Awards page for more information. Congrats to all!
Potential genetic cause of severe sleep disorder discovered, implications for Parkinson’s disease research26/07/2011
TORONTO, ON – Researchers at the University of Toronto are the first to indentify a potential cause for a severe sleep disorder that has been closely linked to Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. “Our research is the first to establish a potential genetic link to human REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD). That’s important because between 60 and 80 per cent of people diagnosed with human RBD develop Parkinson’s disease or other neurodegenerative disorders later in life,” says Dr. John Peever, lead author of the study that recently appeared inThe Journal of Neuroscience. Rapid-eye-movement sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is most often characterized by violent movements that occur during dreaming sleep, also called rapid-eye-movement sleep. People who suffer from RBD do not experience normal muscle paralysis that prevents them from enacting their dreams and they often hurt themselves or their bed partners with their rapid, forceful movements. In some cases, patients need to be tied to their bed to prevent serious injury to themselves or their bedpartners. Peever’s team focused on investigating a genetic cause of RBD because the underlying cause of this disorder is unknown. There is evidence indicating that reduced brain inhibition could cause RBD, so Peever’s team genetically reduced brain inhibition in mice and then recorded their sleep and muscle activity. “We found that mice with reduced brain inhibition acted just like human RBD patients and they moved violently during REM sleep,” says Peever. “This link strongly suggests that patients with RBD may also have impaired brain inhibition.” They also found that RBD symptoms in mice could be alleviated by giving them clonazepam – a drug used to treat human RBD. Peever’s research underscores the importance of identifying a cause of RBD as 60 – 80 per cent of RBD sufferers subsequently develop Parkinson’s. “Treating RBD could have direct implications for understanding and perhaps treating Parkinson’s disease,” says Peever.
Canadian Thoracic Society updates guidelines on sleep apnea 16/03/2011
The Canadian Thoracic Society (CTS) Sleep Disordered Breathing Committee is proud to announce an update to the 2006 guideline "Diagnosis and treatment of sleep disordered breathing".
Please visit the website at:http://www.respiratoryguidelines.ca
to download the guidelines and to get more helpful information!
CBC survey on sleep04/01/2011
Canadians aren't getting enough sleep, according to a new poll commissioned by CBC News. Read more at: www.cbc.ca
Portable monitoring position paper 07/12/2010
Canadian Sleep Society (CSS) and Canadian Thoracic Society (CTS) position paper on portable monitoring for obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea publication in the Sept/Oct 2010 issue of the Canadian Respiratory Journal.
Please visit the website at: Canadian Respiratory Journal
Downloading a copy for personal use is free:
Reprints are available on request to:
The Canadian Thoracic Society
c/o The Lung Association National Office
300-1750 Courtwood Crescent
Ottawa, Ontario K2C 2B5
Telephone 613-569-6411
fax: 613-569-8860
e-mail: ctsinfor@lung.ca
What is the Impact of Sleep Apnea on Canadians? 07/12/2010
Fast Facts from the 2009 Canadian Community Health Survey
Please visit the website at: www.phac-aspc.gc.ca
Click image below for English brochure...
Click image below for French brochure...
CIHR Team Grant Results24/10/2010
CIHR Team Grant results are now posted on the CIHR website at the following link: Click Here
Four out of nine submitted proposals have been awarded funding support over 5 years to conduct and develop state-of-the-art research on Sleep and Circadian Rhythms in Canada.
Altogether, the funding provided is close to $7 400 000.
The Teams are respectively led by:
Najib Ayas (University of British Columbia, BC)
Penny Corkum (Dalhousie University, NS)
Richard Horner (University of Toronto, ON)
Peter Soja (University of British Columbia, BC).
The CSS wishes to sincerely congratulate the awardees!
