Last February, Carolyne Eagan’s mother was suddenly stricken with an excruciatingly painful condition called trigeminal neuralgia, which prevented her from eating, talking or drinking without triggering a flare of pain in her head. Eagan gathered up her mom’s medications and got into the ambulance with her, feeling increasingly distressed as she wasn’t able to answer […]
Approximately 10 per cent of Canadians live with diabetes and one in 300 children live with Type 1 diabetes, according to Dr. Angelo Simone, a paediatric endocrinologist at Trillium Health Partners, during a webinar hosted by Benefits Canada and sponsored by Abbott in April. As a parent caring for two children living with Type 1 […]
The New Brunswick government is expanding the use of biosimilars for certain chronic conditions in its public drug plans. Approximately 3,000 beneficiaries of the province’s drug plans who are living with diseases such as inflammatory arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes and psoriasis will have until Nov. 30 to switch from a biologic to the biosimilar […]
When a 46-year-old woman was diagnosed in early 2016 with stage-two triple-negative breast cancer, she started planning her return to full-time work at almost the same time she began treatment. “It’s interesting because when we think of return-to-work planning, we think of starting to talk about this toward the end of the treatment phase,” said […]
Diabetes care has tended to focus on achieving adequate glucose levels — but the real goal should be maintaining those levels over time, said Alex Abitbol, endocrinologist and assistant medical director of LMC Healthcare, during Benefits Canada’s 2021 Chronic Disease at Work conference in late February. “Much of the guidelines, much of the discussions amongst […]
The pandemic has taken a dramatic toll on the well-being of Canadians, but one of the most notable trends has been its impact on employees with pre-existing mental-health challenges, said Lanie Schachter-Snipper, registered psychotherapist and national director of outpatient services for EHN Canada, during Benefits Canada’s 2021 Chronic Disease at Work conference in late February. […]
Alzheimer’s and dementia is a growing area of concern for the workplace, with more than half a million Canadians currently living with dementia and the number expected to almost double to more than 900,000 by 2030, said Sharon Cohen, neurologist and medical director of the Toronto Memory Program, during Benefits Canada’s 2021 Chronic Disease at […]
Employers have taken on a larger role in employees’ cancer care in the past few years, but the coronavirus pandemic changed the game even further, said Tim Clark, president of tc Health Consulting Inc., during Benefits Canada’s 2021 Chronic Disease at Work conference in late February. Cancer is now the sixth most expensive disease by […]
Benefits plans tend to cover care for common chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and chronic obstructive lung disease. But the one they often don’t support is obesity, said Arya Sharma, scientific director at Obesity Canada and clinical co-chair of Alberta Health Services’ obesity program, during Benefits Canada’s 2021 Chronic Disease at Work conference in […]
When People Corp. started looking into reducing its claims numbers related to chronic disease, it decided to tackle what Judith Plotkin, vice-president of health and wellness solutions, called “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:” diabetes, obesity, heart disease and high blood pressure. The four conditions are comorbidities not only with each other but other afflictions […]