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AHFMR announces $17 million to fund U of A research by Michael Brown
What hastens matters is the limited information doctors have to work with when assessing the heart-failure patient, making the complication difficult to manage early on. Now, thanks to the award earmarked for Justin Ezekowitz, a cardiologist at the U of A Hospital and a new AHFMR population health investigator, critical research into helping the health system respond better to people with heart failure can go ahead. His award is one of 18 Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research grants announced on March 26. "When someone has a heart attack, we know precisely what to do," said Esekowitz. "My goal is to refine our approach and develop a similar rapid response to heart failure." Heart failure results from cardiac disease and takes place when the heart cannot keep up with the demands of the body and is not able to pump enough blood to the muscles, brain, kidneys, and other vital organs. Esekowitz's study will look at 1,000 people in the Edmonton area who come to the emergency room with heart failure. The scope of the research will include when and how the patient arrives at hospital-whether by ambulance, driven by a family member or having walked in-the exam done by the health-care team, what medications are given by paramedics and in the ER, and when the patient is formally diagnosed with heart failure. The clinical team will also analyze standard blood tests along with new, state-of-the-art blood tests to see if they provide helpful information in these early hours. "For people experiencing acute heart failure, the risk of death is high," said Esekowitz. "My research is focusing on those first hours of when somebody is getting sicker by the moment, what we do as a health system, what the paramedics do, what the physicians in the ER do and what we as physicians practicing cardiology do." All told, the 18 U of A researchers took in $17 million worth of awards, each of which is seven years in length. The other award recipients include: Troy Baldwin (immune system), Lauren Beaupre (rehabilitation), Tanya Berry (physical activity), David Brindley (cancer/diabetes), William Colmers (brain), Greta Cummings (health-care work environment), Jeffrey Johnson (diabetes), Padmaja (Padma) Kaul (heart), Johanne Paradis (language disorders), Stefan Pukatzki (infectious diseases), Rhonda Rosychuk (biostatistics), James Shapiro (diabetes), Martin Srayko (cell), Bernard Thébaud (lung repair), Marcello Tonelli (kidney disease), Ban Chi-Ho Tsui (pain medicine) and Richard Wozniak (cell). Michael Mahon, PhD, chair, Health Sciences Council, and dean, Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta, said of the awards: "Sustained support from AHFMR has been crucial to our growing strength in many health-research fields such as cardiology, diabetes, cancer, basic cellular mechanisms and the immune system." This article originally appeared in ExpressNews.
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