Recently my brother visited New Zealand with his wife and children. Natalie, my four-year-old niece, was really excited because she thought she would be able to spend time with her Grandma. At kindergarten she had heard friends talk about their Grandmothers. When anyone asked Natalie about her impending trip she would talk about when she got here she would spend time baking, reading books, making crafts and going shopping with Grandma. We all wished that this could have happened but instead we had to take Natalie to our local cemetery to show her where her Grandma is buried. When we showed Natalie Mum’s grave, Natalie asked ‘She is here?’ and went silent. Instead of the fun times she had imagined with her Grandma Natalie helped my father arrange flowers on Mum’s grave. It is a great sadness for all our family that Natalie has been unable to meet her grandmother as my mother was an amazing woman who we all loved and respected. Mum would have enjoyed being able to spend time with Natalie. A family is richer and stronger when links spread across generations.

Sexual Health Checks available at Victoria University. How convenient is that!

The Student Health Service (SHS) offers all current students free* or low cost sexual health consultations at our clinics on the Kelburn and Pipitea campuses.

Worried about having a check? Don’t be— we will be able to put you at ease about how simple and quick a sexual health check can be.

MYTH: CRACKING KNUCKLES CAUSES ARTHRITIS.

Is the person sitting next to you in lectures making that annoying cracking sound with their knuckles? Have you told them they will get arthritis, just to shut them up? Fear not knuckle crackers, for there is no empirical proof of a link between this habit and arthritis. The audible noise is simply gas being released from the fluid within the joint, making a small ‘pop’. However, it may be linked to reduced grip strength and decreased hand function. Threaten the knuckle cracker next to you with that! Castellanos, J., Axelrod, D. (1990). Effect of Habitual Knuckle Cracking on Hand Function. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. 49:308-309.

MYTH: BED REST IS BEST FOR BACK PAIN.

You’ve been sitting in lectures all day and now your lower back is in agony. All you want to do is lie in bed and avoid the outside world. Stand corrected! People who stay up and walk around are the ones who do the best. Prolonged bed rest in the early phase of back pain has been associated with a higher long-term disability level, as muscles weaken and bone mass reduces. A routine of back healthy activities such as stretching, walking and swimming can help keep muscles moving and speed up the recovery process.

Immunity from some vaccines weakens over time and to maintain protection booster shots are required. At different times in life we are more at risk of developing certain vaccine-preventable diseases. It doesn’t matter how young, strong, beautiful, intelligent, politically aware or creative you are, these vaccine-preventable diseases are capable of making you extremely ill; potentially permanently damaging you or even killing you.

Some vaccines are especially recommended for young adults living in shared accommodation such as Residential Halls and flats. These are Meningococcal C, Measles and if you have not had chicken pox the Varicella vaccine. You may also require a booster for Pertussis also known as Whooping Cough.

In recent months there have been 15 cases of Measles in the Wellington Region including a student from Victoria University. To be fully protected from measles you need to have two doses of the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine over the age of twelve months.

One vaccine which is recommended every year is the influenza vaccine.

Bonnie Leung (22) was young and fit and studying medicine at Auckland University when she developed influenza caused by the HINI (swine flu) strain of the virus. Bonnie spent two and half weeks in intensive care and almost died from this serious disease. It took her a year to fully recover. “I hadn’t really thought about vaccination before because I was rarely sick. But now I realise anyone can catch influenza and it can be devastating.”

FREE INFLUENZA VACCINES FOR STUDENTS AT VICTORIA UNIVERSITY 

The nurses from the Student Health Service will be visiting Residential Halls in the early evenings and holding lunchtime clinics on the Karori, Te Aro and Kelburn campuses throughout March. The vaccine will be free. Clinic times and locations will be advertised on our website and around campus. The clinic at Karori will be held on the 15th March. The clinics on the Kelburn campus will be held in the Student Union Building during the week of 19th March. Students on the Pipitea campus can be seen at the SHS clinic in the West Wing of the Wellington Railway Station.

The influenza vaccine is also funded by the Ministry of Health for people with long-term health conditions such as diabetes, or people with asthma who take a preventer inhaler.

If you are unsure if you need any more immunisations talk to the friendly and knowledgeable doctors and nurses at the SHS. We can advise you about which vaccines we would recommend for you.

Time is of the essence: please try to schedule a travel health appointment two months before your departure date. This is necessary as some travel immunisations take a few weeks before they are able to provide you with protection against infection. However, even if you are leaving in one or two weeks it is still recommended that you discuss your plans with a doctor. This is particularly relevant if you are travelling to a high risk area, for example parts of South East Asia and India, both of which are popular destinations for students.

Travel appointments with the doctor take thirty minutes and cost between $56.00 – 63.00. There will be additional charges for any immunisations the doctor may prescribe for you. It is important that that you are able to provide the doctor with your immunisation history. To obtain this information you may have to search for your Plunket Book or ask your family or your current and possibly your previous health centre. It is particularly helpful to know if you have had the following immunisations or diseases and when you had them:

- Tetanus\Diphtheria, Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR), Hepatitis B, Hepatitis A and Chicken pox.

- When you see the doctor tell them about your health history including if you have any allergies. If your doctor prescribes travel immunisations you will also require an appointment with a nurse. You can either arrange to have this appointment straight after seeing the doctor or return to see the nurse another day. Often you are able to receive all the immunisations you require in one visit. Some students may require two or three visits to complete the immunisation course prescribed for them.
The doctor will also provide you with: written information regarding food and water safety, malaria prevention and common infections experienced by tourists such as travellers’ diarrhoea; prescriptions for any regular medication you take and other medications such as oral replacement salts, antibiotics to treat diarrhoea and urinary tract infections, tablets to help reduce the risk of contracting malaria, condoms and the emergency contraceptive pill; and general safety advice including how to deal with jet lag, sexual health, safe air travel.

If you are planning to go diving during your trip it is also recommended that you schedule another appointment at the SHS with a doctor for a Diving Medical. It is important to remember that it is dangerous to dive before air travel. You will need to wait at least 12 to 24 hours before flying.

If you are travelling to South America or Africa, planning long term travel, or if you may require immunisations for Yellow Fever, Rabies or Japanese Encephalitis we recommend that you make an appointment at The Travel Doctor rather than the SHS. This is because the those vaccinations need to administered from a specialist travel clinic by authorised staff. The Travel Doctor is located in the Grand Arcade, 14-16 Willis Street, telephone 473 0991. The Travel Doctor offers a 10 per cent discount off products such as insect repellent and water purifying tablets for students with a current Victoria University Identification Card.

When the outside temperature is less-than-balmy, the wind howling or the rain thrashing the motivation required to get that body movin’ can be somewhat in lacking. We all know exercise is pretty good for us, right? Aside from the obvious effects of fitness and weight reduction, did you know that exercise can also help you with:
Your bowels: A recent study has shown that increasing one’s physical activity levels can be effective in decreasing the severity of irritable bowel syndrome (Johannesson et al. 2011). This is a chronic condition which causes discomforting symptoms such as abdominal pain, constipation and diarrhea. If symptoms persist—make an appointment with your doctor.

Pain control: Physical activity produces those good chemicals called endorphins in the brain. These are so strong that they decrease pain perception levels in the brain, i.e. acting as the body’s natural painkillers particularly for musculoskeletal conditions such as low back pain (Linton, Hellsing and Bergström, 1996).

Your mood: Being at university can be tough at times and stress can play a big part in the life of a student, whether from assignments, exams or home-sickness. In addition to acting as a healthy distraction, exercise can lift low moods and assist with the relief of depression. This is due to the release of endorphins, and other feel-good chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin and adrenaline. In some instances, exercise can be as effective in treating depression as medication (Stein and Motta, 1992).

For women—Menstruation symptoms: A study involving 250 University students has indicated that 90 minutes of exercise, twice per week at 50-70 per cent of maximum heart rate can be effective in reducing symptoms associated with menstruation. These included psychological and physical premenstrual symptoms and menstrual cramps (Jahromi et al., 2008).

The general rule for adults to maintain health is 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day. heartfoundation.org.nz/uploads/A5_Physical_Activity_08_06.pdf . Some sources recommend 20 minutes of vigorous activity three days a week, plus muscle strengthening exercises at least twice a week.

Hopefully the above evidence can provide a little extra motivation to get you going on those days when you just don’t feel like it.
How to increase your activity?
• Do your own thing – go for a walk or a run, or race your flatmates around the block or up the stairs.
• Check out the Recreation Centre on the Kelburn or Pipitea campus union.vuw.ac.nz/reccentre The friendly staff members are there to help you if you need it!
• Health/Counselling/Recreation Centre offer a supported exercise programme for students with low mood and motivation – ‘Lifting Our Spirits’ victoria.ac.nz/st_services/counselling/resources/healthy-minds-at-vic.pdf
• Join one of the many sports clubs on campus vuwsa.org.nz/clubs/clubs-directory/

If you have any questions about previous injuries or your ability to exercise contact us at the Physiotherapy Clinic on Level One of the Student Union building.

If the volume through headphones is too high and if you are listening for long hours, there is a real risk of permanent hearing damage.
To determine if you are at risk for music-induced hearing loss from wearing your personal stereo system, it would be necessary to know how loud your particular system is and how long you use it each day. This is very difficult as systems vary in output. It is important to follow these simple steps to protect yourself from a permanent music-induced hearing loss due to personal stereo systems use.

• Always follow the 60\60 Rule: Researchers determined that the exposure limit for safe headphone listening is one hour a day with the volume no higher that 60 per cent. If you listen for more than an hour, you should turn the volume down.
• Ear muff type headphones are better than Ear buds: Unfortunately, the ear buds preferred by music listeners are even more likely to cause hearing loss than the muff-type earphones that were associated with the older devices.
• Turn it Down: Use a well-shielded earphone/earbud and turn the volume down as much as possible.
• Take a Break: Avoid prolonged, continuous listening to the systems by taking frequent breaks.
• Avoid: using the personal stereo while exercising (you may maintain a high volume as you are exercising) or if your work already involves head phone usage and/or loud noises or music exposure. This means you may exceed the permissible daily noise dosage.
• “Automatic Volume Limiter”: Look for personal stereo system with an “Automatic Volume Limiter’ which limits the output of the system to safe levels.
• Do not ‘block out’ the noise: Set your system at a comfortable level in a quiet room. Do not turn it up when you are in noisy setting to ‘block out’ the noise
• Do not interchange headsets with systems: The League for the Hard of Hearing has found that this will increase output and risk to hearing.
• Follow this simple rule of thumb: If you cannot hear other people talking when you are wearing headphones or if other people have to shout to you to be heard at one metre
away while the headphones are on, it is too loud and could be damaging to your hearing.

If you hear ringing or buzzing sounds in your ears or you find speech sounds muffled, discontinue using your personal stereo and get your hearing checked by a qualified audiologist.

For instance, there are many potential physical health impacts. A variety of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), or alternatively the side effects of antibiotics given to prevent STIs, are possible. In the case of the female assault victim, there is the added risk of pregnancy, miscarriage, termination, or alternatively the (albeit mild) effects of the emergency contraception pill given to prevent pregnancy. In addition, a variety of injuries have been documented (but are not usual in presentations to SAATS) as being caused by sexual assault.

Of considerable concern are psychological harms which have been documented as being caused by sexual assault, but it is important to be clear that these are potential harms only because people react differently to different stressors.

Does it hurt or help to know about potential psychological harms? And again the answer is both. It helps because if we know that these effects have been documented as normal responses to a traumatic situation, then we know that with the right assistance we can work through them. It hurts because knowing about potential effects can have self-fulfilling outcomes and the knowledge itself can be oppressive.

Unsurprisingly, sexual assault may cause post-traumatic stress in the form of Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS). For some, acute phase RTS symptoms, including fear and clinical shock, may be wide-ranging. These and other effects are exacerbated by:
• Social forces­ especially rape mythology
• Threats and force used during the rape and the commonly expressed fear of dying
• These may cause complete disorganisation of people’s lives in the immediate aftermath of rape.
Beyond the immediate psychological impacts, there is potential for long-term effects such as: sexual dysfunction, phobic reactions, intrusive thoughts and fear of solitude, or conversely withdrawal and social isolation. These can lead to compromised ability to function in usual work and social roles and therefore economic and social disadvantage.

Such disadvantage has also been clearly demonstrated in relation to childhood sexual assault/abuse. Children who have been sexually abused and leave home without the means of survival, in having been sexualised, may sell sex in order to live. If alcohol and drugs are accessed in coping with the consequences of this decision, this compounds the economic and social disadvantage.

Other long-term effects include the many possible somatically induced physical health effects which can occur due to the effects of severe stress on the immune system. These occur particularly if disclosures are inadequately responded to. It is evident then that sexual assault is a significant event warranting an equally significant systems response. I will talk about the medical/forensic response in my third and final article.

Does it help or hurt to know this? Well, both. Sexual assault affects all women, not just the direct victims. If we know about the risk factors, as women we can keep ourselves safe by staying at home, not working late hours, not drinking—in other words, we can limit our lives until we have no life. That hurts! And it won’t work!

It won’t work because sexual assault is not usually committed by strangers. This certainly does happen, but for the most part men will assault women who are their flatmates, partners, acquaintances, dates, sisters, daughters and step relatives. And serial rapists are simply men who have perfected ways to achieve sexual access irrespective of situational ethics and your consent.

Here’s how. He will meet you at a bar, cafe, party—anywhere. You will like him because he can be charming—some may say manipulative. He will ask if you would like to go somewhere else with him tonight or meet again and you will agree. Having carefully chosen his location to minimise others’ interference and your resistance, he will coerce you sexually. And you will doubt yourself and doubt your memory of how it went down because he will say you led him on, you consented, or it didn’t happen that way. And worse, if you agree to go anywhere with him, his defence team will argue, and usually successfully, that everything that happened from that moment on was consensual.

As women, how do we get the balance right between keeping ourselves safe and limiting our lives to the point of compromising self-actualisation? Can we trust and like men, while also developing a scrutinising eye for men who are sexual predators? Are these even the right questions to be asking?

Or are the questions better asked of men and by men? For instance, as men, how do you manage the cognitive dissonance which, as women, we are sure you must have if you suborn the will of our mothers, sisters, friends, and daughters to your sexual needs? As men, how do you not understand our right of control over our bodies? As men, how do you not understand the great harm that you do us?

In my next article on sexual assault, I will talk more about this harm. *
Linda Beckett (PhD)

Group Exercise is a highly motivating and fun way to work out and the Recreation Centre has a great range of 12pm and 1pm lunchtime classes on offer from Pilates and Yoga through to Mega Danz and Step. These 50 minute classes cater for all fitness levels and abilities and it doesn’t matter if you are experienced or a complete beginner as the staff at the Recreation Centre are always welcoming and friendly and can help get you started straight away.

Exercise has so many proven positive benefits, it lifts your mood and concentration, helps you sleep, and also improves body image, lowers your blood pressure and cholesterol levels and strengthens your immune system to name just a few. So why not get involved?

The Group Exercise instructing team at the Recreation Centre is one of the best in Wellington and the memberships are such amazing value for money.
A 12 month Group Exercise Student membership is only $85 and this allows you to attend as many Group Exercise classes per week as you wish. It really is an opportunity not to be missed while studying at Vic.

The Recreation Centre is extremely lucky to have Arlene Thomas Hewitt on board their instructing team teaching three lunchtime Group Exercise classes per week. Arlene is a former Aerobics Champion and won the New Zealand title eleven times in a row and also won the title as world champion in 1997! Arlene is currently a Master Trainer for Radical Fitness and has been teaching, coaching and choreographing classes for 20 years. Arlene teaches Tuesday 12pm X55 and 1pm Oxigeno and Thursday 1pm Mega Danz and all of her classes are very highly recommended.

• X55 is an athletic, high energy workout for those who want to focus on improving their fitness, achieve weight loss, and increase muscle tone in their body. The music is fantastic and definitely helps you push through the squats and lunges.
• Oxigeno combines the best of Yoga, Pilates and Ballet and is the perfect class to attend to de-stress, stretch, and relax. The music is beautiful and the stretching sequences really help to calm the mind.
• Mega Danz is a fun- filled dance class combining many different styles of dance from Latin through to Hip Hip. You’ll be having such a great time dancing that working out will no longer feel like a chore.

As well as these fantastic Group Exercise classes the Recreation Centre provides all kinds of other Sport and Fitness related activities for everyone.

For more information on Group Exercise and our other services check out the website or contact: meredith.price@vuw.ac.nz