Living — and Thriving — With ADHD

As a child, André Brisson was disruptive in class, but not in the way kids with attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are typically disruptive: running around, climbing on chairs, bouncing off the walls. He was more vocally and intellectually disruptive — challenging teachers’ authority and ideology, voicing his opinions when he disagreed with them.

In high school, he had difficulty fitting in with accepted social norms, referring to himself as a “unique oddball”. He says he struggled with constant emotional dysregulation — irrational emotions that came on intensely and immediately.

As a young adult, any slight — real or imagined — set him off, and he was quick to anger. As an engineer in his first — and only — job working for others, he had trouble keeping on top of things because he couldn’t handle the many distractions and interruptions common to an office setting.  At home, he was screaming at his children for no reason. His life was spiralling. To find out how he pulled himself up — including starting his own successful business and popular podcast — click here to read my latest piece for Postmedia’s Healthing section, the third and final in a series on the topic.

Navigating the Health Care System With ADHD

When Heidi Bernhardt’s first child was diagnosed with attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the late 1990s, she started looking for organizations that offered resources and supports. She found very little, so, in 2000, she founded her own. Toronto-based Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada (CADDAC) has since grown into a national charity that provides education, advocacy, coaching, conferences, workshops and support groups for  those diagnosed with ADHD.

Combined with her background in psychiatric nursing, the process of assembling an abundance of resources and experts helped Bernhardt navigate the health-care system when her other two sons were also diagnosed with ADHD (her husband also lives with the disorder). ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition defined as “a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development”, according to the Canadian Paediatric Society. It is the third most common mental health disorder in the world, after depression and anxiety, and the most common neurodevelopmental disorder in children, affecting anywhere from five to nine per cent of children and three to five per cent of adults, according to CADDAC.

In this second of a three-part report on the disorder for Postmedia’s Healthing section, I delve a little deeper into how it’s diagnosed, treated and managed. To read all about it, click here.

Startling Stats About ADHD in Canada

For anyone grappling with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), being told, “You’re just stressed out, you’ll get over it,” only exacerbates the anxiety that often comes with a diagnosis. Many people who gloss over the disorder don’t realize just how serious it is.

Esme Fuller-Thomson, professor and director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging at the University of Toronto, co-authored a series of studies that showed people with ADHD had shockingly high numbers of alcohol and other substance use disorders, suicide ideation, as well as sexual and childhood abuse.

“Particularly striking, with other lifetime drug use disorders, [including] heavier drugs, it was almost 18 per cent versus five per cent,” says Fuller-Thomson. “Some of them had more than one [substance abuse issue], so when you add that up, it’s almost at half in the ADHD group, 49 per cent, versus 24 per cent in the no ADHD group.” To find out what else plagues those living with the disorder, as well as a little background on it, click here to read my latest piece for Postmedia’s Healthing section.

High-tech offers hotel housekeepers a helping hand, but are we there yet?

Robotic vacuums? Self-cleaning toilets? An autonomous cart that delivers linens (and uses the elevator)? Software that assigns room cleaning based on guest preference? Sounds more like sci-fi than AI, but futuristic technology and artificial intelligence is already a reality, whether we like it or not. And what’s not to like? Anything that makes the hard work of hotel housekeeping easier, more efficient, more economical and more sustainable is surely a welcome addition to the team.

And, with the ongoing staff shortage in the hospitality industry, more automation and tech can help fill the gap left by the loss of all those human workers. A recent McKinsey report revealed that the travel and tourism industry lost 62 million jobs in 2020 — and labour supply and demand continue to remain out of balance. With travel now soaring and staffing shortages persisting, hoteliers need to do more with less. And any advances in modern tech can help them do more to streamline procedures and lessen tedious administrative work, freeing them to focus more on guest relations, my source told me.

However, we’re not seeing wide-spread adoption of robotic vacuums (although Travelodge in the UK introduced RoboVac Buddies two years ago) and other revolutionary technology in North America just yet, digital solutions specifically for housekeeping are on the rise. To learn more, click here to read my latest piece for Hotelier Magazine.

Connecting With Customers

It’s been said that people will forget what you said, they’ll forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. It could also be said that to manage an unforgettable relationship with your customers, it wouldn’t hurt to strive for all three. That’s not always humanly possible, however, which is where a little technical help — called, coincidentally, a customer relationship management system, or CRM — comes in.

What is CRM? Simply put, a CRM is an integrated, data-driven software system that tracks, stores and manages information about your current, future and prospective guests — what and how they booked, the facilities they used, and how satisfied (or not) they were with their experience. Using this information helps hoteliers and their teams communicate with these guests before, during and after their stay, and informs any changes they might make as a result.

“We used to take out ads in the newspaper and Yellow Pages,” says Edward Keenan, vice-president, resort operations for Clique Hotels & Resorts, of early efforts to attract guests. After their stay, staff would gather up all the comment cards left in the rooms and catalogue them manually on paper. “We’ve come a long way since then.” To find out how far, click here to read my latest story for Hotelier Magazine.

The Most Common Heart Defect in the World By the Numbers

About one in 100 Canadian children are born with congenital heart disease, the most common birth defect in the world, according to the Canadian Congenital Heart Alliance (CCHA). In fact, it’s more common than Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS, cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis. It’s also on the rise, while awareness is relatively low.

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is 60 times more prevalent than childhood cancer, according to the CCHA, and about a quarter of children will require heart surgery or other interventions. Approximately 260,000 Canadians are living with CHD, two-thirds of them adults. At least half face the prospect of complications, multiple surgeries and premature or sudden death. Many face a lifelong risk of health problems such as difficulty with exercise, heart rhythm problems, heart failure, sudden cardiac arrest or stroke.

But medical advances in this field have improved so much that many of those born with CHD will have few or no symptoms, and a good quality of life if they avoid and manage any complications. In fact, 60 years ago, only about 20 per cent of children born with a CHD lived to adulthood. Today, that’s risen to more than 90 per cent. To learn more, click here to read my latest piece for Postmedia’s Healthing section.

Arresting Developments: New report reveals what we don’t know about cardiac arrest could kill us

If an annual Facebook memory prompt didn’t remind Lisa Hutcheson of what happened to her on a cold January morning 15 years ago, the slight bulge of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) under her skin will never let her forget. She had always been active, but like so many people come the new year, she wanted to step it up a bit. So she enlisted a personal trainer and was working out at her Markham, Ont. gym. “We had a pretty normal session,” she says, before everything went awry. “I was on the treadmill and told him, ‘I don’t feel very — ‘ and didn’t get to finish the sentence.”

It’s safe to say Hutcheson didn’t feel very well, and was about to fall to the concrete floor when her trainer caught her. Fortunately, two retired police officers happened to be in the gym at the time. The three of them took turns performing chest compressions (CPR) on her while an ambulance raced to the scene. “At the hospital, I was in a medically induced coma for two days while they were trying to figure out what had happened,” says Hutcheson, who was 41 at the time.

What happened is that she had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. “I want people to know I had a cardiac arrest, I did not have a heart attack,” she says. “People inter-mix them; they don’t understand the difference.” In its new report, “Every Second Counts”, the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada wants people to know the difference, too, because that knowledge can be life-saving. To find out why, click here to read my latest piece for Postmedia’s Healthing section.

What it’s like to live with the world’s most common birth defect

When Nathalie Lacoste-Hofmann was born in the summer of ‘69, she says her parents had “the best 20 minutes of their lives”. The minutes that followed turned into their worst. Baby Nathalie’s pink little face faded to blue as she struggled to breathe.

She was quickly stabilized and nestled into an incubator, where she spent the next several weeks. Diagnosis: congenital heart disease. “My parents were told they could keep me and have lots of debt — this was just before universal health care — or they could put me in palliative care,” says Lacoste-Hofmann. “Bless their hearts, they kept me.”

There was definitely a high cost, but more emotionally than financially, as health care kicked in about a year after she was born, which covered most of her medical bills. Emotionally, it was a roller-coaster. Once she was strong enough to go home, Lacoste-Hofmann’s parents kept emergency services on speed dial because their newborn would frequently turn blue and end up back in an oxygen tent.

Later, when she was older and allowed to go to school, her mother had to stay home and near the phone — just in case. To find out how Nathalie persevered through life with the world’s most common birth defect in the world, click here to read my latest piece for Postmedia’s Healthing section.

Caring for a young son with arthritis while living with arthritis

Having had autoimmune diseases most of her life — Graves disease, autoimmune hepatitis, and Sjögren’s disease —including rheumatoid arthritis, which also afflicts several of her family members, Lauren Meadows did not want to pass them on to any children she might have. Her obstetrician had warned her that not only could she have difficulty getting pregnant, she could have a complicated pregnancy. Other doctors told her that, although the chances of passing on an autoimmune disease to her children are not necessarily high, she should be prepared for the possibility. That possibility became a reality with her only child.

One morning, when Meadows’ son, Nolan, was about five years old, he struggled with the buttons on his pajamas. In the bathroom, he couldn’t squeeze the toothpaste tube, and she thought, “Oh, no.” It brought back distressing memories of herself as a child suffering for years with undiagnosed chronic pain and inflammation.

About three in 1,000 Canadian children live with some form of childhood arthritis, which includes juvenile idiopathic arthritis, or JIA, according to the Arthritis Society of Canada, and affects females more often than males. Since it doesn’t always cause pain, doctors can easily miss it. Sometimes the only indication is when a child wakes up stiff, or has difficulty moving an arm or leg, which can indicate an inflamed joint. It can also take time to isolate the particular type of childhood arthritis in order to formulate a specific treatment plan.

To find out how Lauren and Nolan managed his diagnosis, and how he’s doing today at 14, click here to read my recent piece for Postmedia’s Healthing section.

Profitability Pays

If the average hotelier was as passionate about revenue management as Christoph Hütter is, their bottom line could very well be significantly healthier. And Hütter is very passionate.

Prior to moving from Europe to Canada in 2012, Hütter was revenue manager for a large hotel in Brussels when the financial crisis hit in 2008. No sooner had he sighed with relief that Belgium was spared, the calendar flipped to 2009 and so did the country’s fortunes.

“It hit us pretty bad,” says Hütter. “But I realized that if I did a good job and filled those rooms, people would go to work the next day. I understood the responsibility that came with that. That’s what has guided me over the years to generate more revenue for hotels, to help boost their profitability. Revenue doesn’t pay the bills; profitability is what matters at the end of the day.” To find out how he juices that revenue into profitability, click here to read my recent story (p. 38) in Hotelier Magazine.