The Healthy LifeWorks project: The effect of a comprehensive workplace wellness program on the prevalence and severity of musculoskeletal disorders in a Canadian government department.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a comprehensive workplace wellness program on the prevalence and severity of musculoskeletal disorders in a Canadian government department.

Methods: The Healthy LifeWorks program was developed, implemented, and evaluated over a 4-year period. A total of 233 employees completed the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire before and after the program to determine the prevalence and severity of musculoskeletal disorders.

The Healthy LifeWorks Project: a pilot study of the economic analysis of a comprehensive workplace wellness program in a Canadian government department.

Objective: To examine the relationship between health risks and absenteeism and drug costs vis-a-vis comprehensive workplace wellness.

Methods: Eleven health risks, and change in drug claims, short-term and general illness calculated across four risk change groups. Wellness score examined using Wilcoxon test and regression model for cost change.

Longitudinal changes in exercise capacity after stroke.

Objective: To determine if stroke patients without specific aerobic training experience a change in the first 6 months after stroke.

Design: Descriptive, longitudinal study with repeated measures of exercise capacity at 1, 2, 3, and 6 months after stroke.

Setting: Exercise testing laboratory in a tertiary care hospital.

Exercise capacity early after stroke.

Objective: To evaluate exercise capacity of patients with a poststroke interval of less than 1 month.

Design: Prospective, cohort, observational study.

Setting: Exercise testing laboratory in a tertiary care hospital.

Cardiovascular stress during a contemporary stroke rehabilitation program: is the intensity adequate to induce a training effect?

Objectives: To investigate the level of cardiovascular stress of physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) sessions of a contemporary stroke rehabilitation program and to identify therapeutic activities that elicit heart rate responses adequate to induce a training effect.

Design: A descriptive, longitudinal study with heart rate and activity monitoring of PT and OT sessions at biweekly intervals, 2 to 14 weeks poststroke.

Setting: An acute inpatient stroke unit and inpatient and outpatient stroke rehabilitation units.