“We have a lot of great things going for us in Toronto. We really stand out in neuroscience, but another of my dreams is to create networks for improved French-language services and ultimately to foster more bonding among our students from Québec – post-doctoral students, for instance – who come to do research and clinical internships.” These are the words of Guy Proulx, a neuropsychologist and full professor in the Department of Psychology at Glendon College, dreaming out loud.
This Franco-Ontarian gets carried away as soon as you mention cognitive neuropsychology, a field that studies the relationship between the brain and behaviour, interactions among brain structures and such cognitive skills as memory, language and attention. Like the comic book character Obélix, Professor Proulx “fell into” his discipline when he was still fairly young. He tells about passing by an “extended care hospital” (to use the terminology of the time) when he was a teenager living in Ottawa. He found a summer job there as a nurse when he was 16. In 1967, he began his involvement with the elderly and has never looked back. While still quite young, Mr. Proulx decided to become a neuropsychologist. As he himself says, “the more proficient I became in getting to know people who were supposedly ‘confused,’ the less confused they actually turned out to be. Their condition was, for me, an incredible window into the human mind.”
Mr. Proulx completed a Ph.D. in psychology and took neuroscience courses focusing on the area “from the neck up.” He was particularly interested in the cognitive changes associated with neurological disorders in people as they age. He is now thrilled to witness the rehabilitation and reintegration efforts being made for the aging. “The time has come because I know that cases of Alzheimer’s disease and related conditions could more than double over the next 30 years,” he says, echoing the Alzheimer Society.
ARRIVAL AT GLENDON
In 2009, Guy Proulx was made full professor at Glendon College, an institution he had attended earlier because, for him, Glendon is a francophone oasis in the heart of Toronto. He set up an internship program at the College. “There are lots of examples of students in several centres and clinical centres who are using clinical tools to carry out all kinds of projects involving the brain and bilingualism,” he says. He considers these clinical tools important because of his experience in developing psychological tests in English (memory test, attention tests). There were no such tools in French, however, so he created some and, with help from Glendon students, he is currently engaged in clinically validating these French-language tools.
“Here at Glendon our students work in a clinical neuropsychology laboratory in which the College has invested. We’re able to apply the francophone standards thanks to the applied research student interns. Once we have a substantial number of files, we compare them to the anglophone standards; our findings show a match rate of 98%. This means that the French test, translated from English, is clinically validated. Prof. Proulx goes on to say, “I co-authored a tool that is being used in a lot of English-speaking universities in America. Now that it’s available in French, I have colleagues in both Acadia and Québec who are using it. Once we’ve completed the patient assessments, our students will be able to provide genuine help to the community in terms of creating clinical intervention programs for people with memory disorders.”
FRANCOPHONE SERVICES IN ONTARIO
Prof. Proulx is entertaining several projects to improve services for francophone Ontarians and is counting on Glendon College to help him realize them. In the GTA, there are only 37 so-called “francophone” beds for people afflicted with dementia or Alzheimer’s. For the first time, francophone planning bodies have been set up and there are now more resources invested in improving care for French speakers. Prof. Proulx is hoping to develop initiatives like the Pavillon Omer-Deslauriers, a francophone long-term care unit within an anglophone residence. The Glendon interns go to these francophone units to help set up services and marshal resources. Professor Proulx also has other projects. “When I started in the 1970s, people talked about dementia and senility. Now the meaning of the word “dementia” has become more differentiated, and today we can identify a dozen different types of dementia. And, most importantly, we see people earlier and earlier. We have refined our tools and can see people five years before they manifest symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. There are a lot of developments in the works.” For him, the important thing is to see people at risk much sooner.”
His dream is to set up “memory centres” in places like the Omer Deslauriers Centre. Thanks to telemedicine, these “memory” programs would allow people with mild memory disorders to become familiar with the continuum of long-term care and remain in their communities for a longer time through day programs at the long-term care centres. For Proulx, the Glendon community is in a position to make a great contribution because of its francophile and francophone students – a group who are able to serve the French-speaking community and are interested in health care.
Proulx adds: “This gives you an idea of what I’m dreaming of. But it’s a beautiful dream and very realistic because I really came to Glendon in 2009 to try to open the door in the health sciences. I did so because that was my field and because it’s important for Ontario’s francophonie. But I also did it because Glendon wants to increase its postsecondary French-language educational offerings. It’s a rapidly expanding centre of excellence,” he concludes, with an obvious note of pride in his voice.
