Conference coverage: Mental Health Summit Toronto

From lack of sleep to post-traumatic stress disorders, employees facing a range of challenges that can have an impact on their work. What are some of the causes of mental-health issues and how can employers recognize when an employee is having difficulties?

At the 2017 Mental Health Summit in Toronto on Nov. 7, experts provided insight into mental-health issues at work and offered up actionable takeaways for how to address them and create a mentally healthy and productive workplace.

Below are some of the highlights of the sessions from the event.

Don’t forget to check out photos from the event in our photo gallery.

Workplace wellness incomplete without financial fitness
When it comes to workplace wellness, health and wealth must go hand in hand, according to a speaker at the recent Mental Health Summit in Toronto.
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How to bridge the insurer, physician divide in disability management
Despite mental health accounting for more than 30 per cent of long-term disability claims, there’s a disconnect between medical practitioners and insurers that unwittingly impedes the ability of plan members to receive timely care.
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Why employers stand to gain by helping their employees sleep
Between trouble sleeping, chronic insomnia and sleep apnea, three-quarters of Canadians sleep less than the recommended seven hours a night.
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Early detection, treatment key to addressing mental disorders
With mental illness the leading cause of disability in Canada, early detection and treatment offer the best and perhaps only chance of a full recovery.
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The role of technology in improving access to timely care
Despite growing empathy and awareness around mental illness, Canadians coping with mental-health disorders continue to struggle with frequent misdiagnoses, ineffective treatment plans and a lack of timely access to care.
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Why first responders need a paradigm shift around mental-health disorders
Given the stressful nature of their jobs, Canada’s first responders ― police, paramedics, firefighters and correctional workers ― are living with much higher rates of mental disorders than the general population, according to a recent national survey published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.
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A call for urgency in treating mental disorders
Clinical depression is much more than a persistent feeling of sadness. It’s a debilitating disease that keeps half a million Canadians away from work in any given week, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
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