Saturday, March 2, 2013

7th Annual Teamster's Charity Golf Tournament

The date is set for the 7th Annual Teamsters Charity Golf Tournament at D'Arcy Ranch in Okotoks, AB.  We are set to go for Thursday, May 30th, 2013 and I look forward to another great day of Golf, lots of fun and incredible food with our amazing participants who have offered continued support each year and also to those who may be new to this most special day to "Make a Difference" to many of our children in Calgary and surrounding area!



This 11th year of Brianne's LEAP of Hope's spring fundraising events will continue to support both The Children's Wish Foundation of Canada who graciously sent our family to Disneyland, CA for Brianne's Wish Trip and also The Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation.   This year we have chosen to help fund the "Brain Health Program".

The Alberta Children’s Hospital is committed to becoming a global leader in the discovery and application of new treatments for brain health. Adding research
resources – clinical, translational and basic science - is essential to drive innovation and advances in treatment for the future. Three of the areas the pediatric brain injury research program will concentrate on are:

Stroke: Established provincial collaborations exist to create the largest population-based sample of perinatal stroke ever studied – around 800 children. Using this cohort, focused research areas in fetal and newborn stroke will include clinical, prothrombotic, genetic, and biomarker risk profiles; the role of placental disease; epidemiology of perinatal stroke syndromes; and imaging studies to predict outcome and understand recovery. Capitalizing on these existing collaborations will provide an opportunity to improve our understanding of perinatal stroke, treatment options, and ultimately, uncover opportunities to advance care for these infants.

Concussion: While the existing brain injury and rehabilitation clinic can accommodate all forms of moderate or severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), they are presently unable to handle mild TBI - the most common form of TBI. 20% of children have a mild traumatic brain injury before the age of 10 years. At this time, there are no known effective treatments for persistent Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS) or methods to assess the effectiveness of potential treatments. By focusing on prevention, education, training, clinical care and research, a formalized complex concussion clinic would provide a unique approach as it would offer comprehensive medical evaluation and intervention.

Epilepsy: It is the conventional belief that seizures in the majority of epileptic patients can be controlled with medications; however, the adverse cognitive psychiatric and psychological problems, memory difficulties, mood and behavioral problems and anxiety are often minimized or overlooked. Up to 30-40% of patients with epilepsy will remain unresponsive to medications and only a small fraction of these may be eligible for epilepsy surgery. Currently, those patients who are not candidates for epilepsy surgery have only two major alternative treatment options. We need to better understand what treatments will work for whom and under what conditions treatments will be most effective.
With your support, you will help us move closer to our vision of become national leaders in Brain Health.

The total needed for the pediatric brain injury research is $7.5 million. Brianne’s LEAP of Hope is proud to be part of this so incredibly important program.

We look forward to seeing you all on May 30th!! 

Patti, Lorea, Ken and The Teamsters Union and Teamsters Rail Conference~