A portrait of this partner institution of cinEXmedia, which seeks to make the lives of the elderly more secure, serene and fulfilled.
Hugo Jacquet
In the spring of 2023 the cinEXmedia partnership joined with the Centre de recherche de l’Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM) to develop methods of care for the elderly which would combine the health sciences and audiovisual media. In this third text in a series of articles whose goal is to highlight the work of CRIUGM, we are providing an overall portrait of the organization and its research projects.
CRIUGM was founded in the 1980s, when Quebec was witnessing a considerable ageing of its population. This phenomenon has become more pronounced since: according to the latest Statistics Canada census, today more than 20% of people living in Quebec are over 65 years old. This can be accounted for in part by longer life expectancies, which have risen by around ten years since the 1980s.
Stéphanie Bastianetto, Senior Agent for Scientific Affairs and Innovation at the institution, emphasizes the growing need to find “universal solutions” in order to “ensure a fulfilling end of life for the elderly”. To this end, she remarks, “CRIUGM acts on two levels with respect to prevention: primary prevention, which consists in avoiding health problems, and secondary prevention, which seeks to reduce the impact of these problems”.
For his part, Oury Monchi, Director of Scientific Affairs at the institution, states that his goal is to encourage “a holistic vision of the interactions between the body, the mind and the environment at the root of integrative and personalized approaches”. The use of cutting-edge technology, moreover, is a central element of the centre’s activities. “Compared to other sectors of the population, the elderly are not necessarily hostile to technology”, he maintains. “They even have a great deal of curiosity about it. One only has to explain clearly how we collect and use our data”.
Such an endeavour nevertheless gives rise to “major ethical constraints”, he adds. “By matching cerebral activity with other information gathered, one could almost recognize the identity of persons who prefer to remain anonymous. One must thus remain transparent and vigilant”.
“An Innovative District”
CRIUGM is also developing an “innovative district” in the Côte-des-Neiges district in Montreal to encourage social participation on the part of its residents and to break down the isolation experienced by the elderly. In what the centre’s team calls a “living laboratory”, they carry out rigorous studies, particularly with respect to the effect of socio-economic determinants on trajectories of ageing. The institution also brings together residents, community organizations and research teams around the same table in order to discuss various issues around ageing, including the social integration of people living with a language disorder.
Oury Monchi adds that “this recent work rounds out the expertise of the centre in the neurosciences and is in keeping with a program of open sciences”. This, he concludes, involves “democratizing the data produced by scientific research” – an approach that corresponds to that advocated by cinEXmedia, which will carry out a variety of projects with CRIUGM in the coming years.
In June 2024, we provided an overview of the initial projects being carried out jointly by the two organizations.
