Take part in Digital Health Week

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November 13-19, 2017, is Digital Health Week in Canada. The week, which has been organized by Better Health Together, aims to celebrate and recognize how digital health is transforming the delivery of healthcare across the country as more and more of our systems adapt to digital landscapes.

The Mikey Network understands the importance of offering access to healthcare online, as it can help many of the people that we work with regularly. Digital health tools can help you perform CPR in emergency situations or keep track of your prescriptions.Here are some examples of technology that will help you to be more heart healthy:

Fitness Trackers

As wearable technology develops many people are now opting for fitness trackers to help monitor their health. In addition to being a watch and a way for you to keep track of your fitness workouts, many can keep an accurate reading of your heart rate. Fitness trackers can be highly beneficial to those of us who recently suffered a heart attack and want to make sure that they don’t overwork their heart.

Some of the most popular trackers are from Fitbit and Garmin, but hybrid fitness tracker/smart-watch options from Apple and Samsung are beginning to gain popularity.

Mikey Young at Heart App

Although our app is geared towards teaching teenagers who can fill their school’s volunteer hour requirements while learning CPR/AED, it is useful to anyone who wants to learn how to perform CPR and how to use an AED in an emergency situation.

Once you download the app, you can work through the different courses and exercises to prepare you for emergency situations you may face if you see someone suffering from a cardiac arrest or a heart attack. It’s available on the Google Play and Apple app store.

Iamsick.ca

Have you ever found yourself asking your friends or family for a good doctor, or if they know of a specialist that could help you? Iamsick.ca can help you with that.. Simply type in your location and it will provide you with a full list of all of the doctors, hospitals and pharmacies that are in your area. The best part about it is that you can access the tool at any time; on your computer, or via the app on your phone.

Nike Running app

Are you looking to get back into working out, but don’t want to spend a bunch of money on a fitness tracker? Try out the Nike+Run app. It’s completely geared towards working with you on your fitness progress. You can develop a plan and it will record the distance, routes, and personal records that you achieve. It will also offer one-on-one coaching to get you to your fitness goals.

Do you have some digital health tools that you’d like to share? Leave your suggestions in the comments or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

 

 

Participate in “Eat Smart” month

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During winter, it can be very easy to have an unhealthy diet. We tend to indulge ourselves with a variety of comfort foods; especially during holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. Although usually delicious, this type of diet isn’t particularly heart-healthy, leading many of us to gain weight and dread about ways that we can lose it.

Following the American Heart Association, we’re encouraging everyone to “eat smart” during the month of November. The aim is to get people to think about making small and simple changes to their diet that will have a lasting impact on their lives.

Eating smarter, adding colour to your meals and moving more is the mantra of the month.

To help you throughout your month, we have listed meals for each part of the day, providing you with a resource of some truly heart-healthy meals that will help you on your way.

Breakfast
Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
Breakfast Burrito
Apple Pancakes

Lunch 
Meal in a Bowl Soup
Zesty Squash Soup
Country Corn & Edamame Salad
Open – Faced Vegetable Sandwich

Dinner 
Garlicky Spaghetti Squash
Miso Chicken
Hearty Chicken Chili
Peachy Chicken Salad

Dessert
Apple Cranberry Crisp
Warm Winter Fruit
Tart Apple Buttermilk Cake
Chocolate Cake

 

See all of our heart-healthy recipes here.

If you have some heart-healthy recipes that you would like to share, reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

 

The Mikey Network helps out Iqaluit

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The Mikey Network has reached as far south as Haiti to help people who are in need of a defibrillator, and now we’ve placed a MIKEY near the top of the world.

Recently, Joamie School, a K-5 school of approximately 260 students and 30 staff, contacted us about their need for a defibrillator.  Located in  Iqaluit, Nunavut; it is one of the most northerly inhabited places in Canada.

The Joamie school’s need for an AED stems from it striving to provide a safer environment for not only the students of Iqaluit but also the residents of the community that often use the school for group meetings or sports activities.

Being so geographically remote and having such a harsh wintery climate make it very difficult for first responders to address health emergencies quickly in Iqaluit. So the school reached out to us for help. Having a MIKEY defibrillator on-site is the only way it could be used in time should a cardiac emergency occur.

Now that the Joamie School has their MIKEY, school staff and students are learning how to use and operate the AED, and staff are seeking out ways that they can promote a more heart-healthy lifestyle in the community.

After installing their MIKEY they were kind enough to send us this picture. “Nakurmiik” (also written in syllabics) means “Thank you” in Inuktitut. How amazing are these kids!? We hope they never have to use their MIKEY but we sure are glad they have one.

 

 

 

Heart Healthy Recipes For Teenagers

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As teenagers attend class, they learn about important school subjects like biology and history, so should they learn about heart-healthy food. Today more than ever food’s available to students have added salts, fats, or sugars, and are generally unhealthy for the developing body. Often when consuming these unhealthy products, students are aware that some products aren’t good for them, but are simply unaware of others like processed juice, which will often have high amounts of sugar added. It’s important to establish an understanding of what is good for the body and what isn’t early on in life as recent studies have suggested that the healthier kids are as they grow up, the greater the chance that they will remain that way later on in life. Young men and women need to be able to have a good understanding of nutrition and healthy recipes so that they can lay these foundations.

We encourage you to check out some of these heart-healthy recipes that we’ve used, as well as some of our older favorites.

Some Heart Healthy Recipes

Tilapia and Vegetables

Apple Cranberry Crisp

Minestrone Soup

Apple Pancakes recipe

Peachy Chicken Salad

Do you have a heart-healthy recipe that you would like to share? Send your recipes to info@mikeynetwork.com

Ways that your child can learn about heart-health at school

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As students head back to school there is often a lot to occupy their time during the first few weeks of the semester. They’re catching up with friends, joining clubs, and beginning their studies. All of these activities are highly important while progressing through high school, but one that should be added is learning about heart-health.

Each year in Ontario, children and teens are among the 6,500 people who experience sudden cardiac arrest. Although the amount of youth that is affected by cardiac arrest is much smaller than that of adults, we at The Mikey Network know that it’s important to teach good practices early on, so that students are prepared for emergencies in the future.

Heart-health isn’t limited to just learning how to perform CPR or how to save a life using first aid. It’s also about retaining a healthy lifestyle. Learn about some of the ways that your child can become involved in more heart-healthy forms of education.

Mikey Young at Heart APP

Not only does the Mikey Young at Heart app provide students with the opportunity to earn volunteer hours that they will need to graduate, but they will also learn how to use an AED or perform CPR in emergency situations. Students begin the process by downloading the app and registering online. Then they earn their volunteer hours by watching instructional videos and completing the course’s exercises.

Health Class

What these health classes are called will vary by school but will focus on teaching students the proper understanding of CPR, first aid, and the human anatomy. Registering for this course can give students a hands on approach to scenario’s that they may deal with if they were to face an emergency situation in real life. Students will also learn about the human anatomy which will provide them with further information on how the rest of the body functions. These classes are of great benefit to those who are looking to enter any medical profession later on in life.

Physical Education/ Sports

Having an active lifestyle is one of the best steps that you can take to prevent heart disease and cardiac arrest. Students that are enrolled in a physical education class or in an extracurricular sport will benefit from learning how to regularly perform a physical workout routine from a trained professional. Some schools will go even further by providing sports academies for students, where they’ll learn about sport/life balance and more advanced topics like Kinesiology.

Cooking 

Most high school students don’t have a good understanding of the nutritional effect that foods will have on their health. If your child is enrolled in cooking classes, they will learn how to cook meals to get through each and every day, while also learning about the proper nutrition that each meal will provide. Building an understanding of what is and isn’t a heart-healthy meal early on in their lives will help them to retain a healthier lifestyle.

These are just some of the things that can help to benefit your child’s heart-health. Regardless of what they do, or what courses they take, what’s important is that they are actively looking to improve their health and learn how to live a healthy lifestyle.