A million bucks for the brain

Anonymous donor boosts U of R research

David Malloy wishes he could give a big hug to the person who donated $1 million to the University of Regina.

Preventing that plan: The donor has requested anonymity. But that doesn’t sour the U of R’s vice-president of research’s reaction to the donation, which will support brain-health-related research projects.

“I would love to splatter the (donor’s) face all over your newspaper, however, people do things for different reasons and it’s just wonderful he has been this generous with us,” Malloy said Monday.

“We’ll make him proud.”

The donation was broadly designated for brain research, so the U of R sent out a call seeking applications and received 12. The applications were given to the donor, who selected four. The money is being split among the four projects.

Holly Barduz and Paul Schwann received $300,000 to examine the impact of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity; Kim Dorsch received $225,000 for the study of attention using multiple object tracking; and Lei Zhang received $225,000 for work on the non-invasive stimulation of the brain to treat neurological diseases.

Thomas Hadjistavropoulos is receiving $250,000 for innovation in dementia care. The unit’s work is focused on improving quality of life of people with dementia. His work has resulted in new ways to evaluate pain — by monitoring physical indicators — in those who live with dementia.

Malloy said more than 70 per cent of all the university’s research funding goes to employing graduate students.

Brain research isn’t a concentrated area of research at the university, though it fits under a larger cluster.

“We have got a pocket of people who are doing great, great research, but I wouldn’t say that we are a centre of excellence in brain research. But this is certainly a first step,” Malloy said.

Hadjistavropoulos, research chair in aging and health, believes the donation could be a springboard for the U of R to be known for its quality brain research.

“When you believe in the project and you believe that it will make a difference in people’s lives, the predominant response is excitement,” he said.

His work generally focuses on pain assessment in dementia, an aspect he says is under-recognized and under-treated.

People who have severe dementia cannot tell you they have pain, so sometimes they will get aggressive, Hadjistavropoulos said.

“There are estimates that people with dementia who live in nursing homes have a prevalence of pain as high as 80 or 90 per cent,” he said.

His goal for the new funding is to give nursing homes the tools to recognize pain faster and more effectively and to optimize treatment. His project has a special focus on rural Saskatchewan, areas generally harder to reach. His unit will develop training modules for nurses, provide access to resources and work with staff on the new methods and evaluate the approach’s effectiveness.

Hadjistavropoulos said studies have shown this type of systematic pain evaluation results in better use of pain medications, reduces pain levels, reduces nurses’ stress and reduces the amount of psychotropic medications patients take.