Fraser Health is receiving a $1.38 million grant to research and test an electronic tool that will help clinicians better understand and track the effects of aging on the brain.
The Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) is providing the grant money for a four-year program with Dr. Xiaowei Song at the helm. She is a neuroimaging expert who studies brain health related to aging at the new Fraser Health and SFU’s NeuroTech and ImageTech labs at Surrey Memorial Hospital.
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According to a report on a Fraser Health website, Song will be assisted by Dalhousie University’s Dr. Kenneth Rockwood, a “world leader in frailty research,” as well as Dr. Grace Park and Annette Garm, executive leader of Community Actions and Resources Empowering Seniors (aka CARES).
Song, who has studied geriatric frailty for 15 years, told Fraser Health’s “thebeat” the electronic tool is used to generate a frailty index that “can act like a canary in a coal mine to tell us in advance that something could go wrong with their health.
“When people get older they tend to accumulate different types of problems and it puts seniors at risk of adverse health outcomes and even death,” she noted.
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