Geriatric Interest Group

Another event that promises to be really great!! All of you students interested in aging, consider geriatric psychiatry – if you like a challenge, complexity and finding new ways of assisting your patients, this may be a meeting of interest to you all!!

From their website: www.cagp.ca/ASM2010

“The CAGP board is pleased this year to partner with the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at the University of Toronto in order to assemble a lively and interactive program focusing on aspects of geriatric mental health from prevention to palliation. The Division of Geriatric Psychiatry has historically presented CME events geared towards family practitioners, nurses, occupational therapists, social workers and other allied health workers. With this year’s partnership, we combine the academic presentations of the CAGP with practical clinical presentations. The topics this year have been requested by attendees at several recent CAGP meetings, and we know that you find will our speakers’ approaches interesting and informative

Register before August 8, 2010 and Save

Susan Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and she will be providing the keynote address on the topic of palliative approaches in dementia. Nathan Herrmann, Professor of Psychiatry at University of Toronto will be giving a plenary presentation about side effects of antipsychotics in the elderly. The final plenary presentation will be an interactive discussion of behavioral approaches to the treatment of behavioral and psychological symptoms in dementia, by Rob Madan, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

We had an unprecedented number of applications for workshop presentations this year, and have chosen an excellent group of diverse workshops that will appeal to attendees of the various backgrounds. Workshop topics include a palliative approach to behavioral and psychological symptoms in dementia, sexuality in dementia, cognitive behavioral approaches for patients with schizophrenia, and ethical issues in seniors’ outreach. Following up on last year’s theme of treatment-resistance, we have an update on approaches to treatment resistant depression in the elderly including transcranial magnetic stimulation. For non-psychiatrists, we have a workshop update on geriatric psychopharmacology including antidepressants, cholinesterase inhibitors and anticholinergic drugs. Finally, an exciting workshop will focus on education and the path towards geriatric psychiatry finally becoming a subspecialty.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Dr. Susan Mitchell, Harvard Medical School
Advanced Dementia: The Patient and Family Experience

PLENARY SPEAKERS

Dr. Nathan Hermann, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Antipsychotics for Dementia: Has the balance finally tipped?

Dr. Robert Madan, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care and University of Toronto
Non-pharmacological Approaches for the Treatment of Behavioral Disturbances in Dementia

Click here for program details

Meeting Location and Host Hotel

The Westin Harbour Castle
1 Harbour Square
Toronto, ON M5J 1A6
For Booking click here

We encourage you to join us in downtown Toronto on Wed Sept 22, 2010 at the Westin Harbour Castle for this collaborative CME and Scientific update on geriatric psychiatry.

If you are in Toronto at any point between now (July 2010) and October 2010 please go see Dr. Mark Nowaczynski’s fabulous photography exhibit. In case you (gasp!) don’t know who Dr. Nowaczynski is, please google “House Calls” the film from the National Film Board of Canada (it even won a Gemini!). Wonderful film, highly recommended for everyone to see. Dr. Nowaczynski heads a non-profit program in Toronto, Ontario that allows a special health team to visit vulnerable seniors at home.

This is the official blurb as well as the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) contact:

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents House Calls with my Camera, a poignant series of photo essays capturing the lives of the patients of Toronto physician Dr. Mark Nowaczynski. The 36 powerful photos taken by Dr. Nowaczynski, many of which are on display for the first time, document the hidden world of his house-bound patients, revealing the startling lack of medical and supportive home care services of this vulnerable population

Web: http://www.rom.on.ca/news/releases/public.php?mediakey=wyau2s01zp

The Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health (CCSMH) is pleased to organize a poster competition at the CCSMH 4th National Conference, September 27 & 28, 2010 at the Westin Nova Scotian in Halifax.

The theme of the conference is “Connecting Research & Education to Care in Seniors’ Mental Health” and we want to showcase students’ important contributions to the study of seniors’ mental health. I’d like to ask for your help in sharing this opportunity with students in the Community Health and Epidemiology programs.

Sponsored by the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit at Dalhousie, winner(s) will receive $250 and a letter/certificate highlighting their accomplishment. We believe this is a unique opportunity to recognize -
and hopefully inspire – students who are committed to the study of seniors’ mental health.

The deadline for submitting an abstract is Friday, July 16, 2010. Attached is an information sheet that outlines conference themes, submission requirements & guidelines, and judging criteria. Full conference details are also available online at http://www.ccsmhevents.ca/studentposters.html

And they say art is not important! Hah!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/07/07/alzheimers.art.class/index.html?eref=time_health

Hello everyone!! Yes it has been a while since I posted here. Many changes have occurred since March, most of them very exciting (and a few I can do without, but change is good regardless).

I have another fabulous resource to share with you all. The University of Iowa Geriatric Education Center created these wonderful simulated cases which you can find at http://www.healthcare.uiowa.edu/igec/resources-educators-professionals/geriasims/acadMenu.asp

Some of the best virtual geriatric education cases I have done in my life! Highly recommended, and kudos to the U of I for all their hard work.

We will be getting a brand new website very soon, and all this information will most likely migrate there. Meanwhile, I will do my best to try and update this place more often!

Stay committed to older adults, you will be one too!

Hello!! It’s been quite a while since I posted last but many things have been going on, so I was taking the time to get as much done as I could before exam time!! Our National GIG idea is coming to fruition which is really exciting, as is our presence within our College. I will update more and post more articles very soon! Happy almost Spring!

Just to leave you with something here is a great link to a Geriatric Radiology tutorial at the University of Auckland in New Zealand:
http://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/faculty/ltu/geriatric_radiology/geriatric.aspx

I am a big technology buff, I will be the first to admit that bias. Regardless, I think that remotely delivered medicine (and I include telehealth aspects in this such as remote link visits with specialists), is a very important future direction of all medicine directed at communities that are far removed from large urban centres. The way this relates to older people, especially, is the fact that many of our communities include mostly older adults, as they are the least likely to just leave their homes and move to the city (I do recognize this as a very generalized statement). This link gives you only a small taste of what is possible, but it is SO wonderful!! The problem I see is that we already have the technology and expertise to make these remote medicine opportunities a reality as part of primary care, yet we don’t, and that is something that we need to change. So if anyone is interested in pursuing an area of medicine that will have to grow, out of necessity of providing excellent care to our patients who choose to live in non-urban locales, the world is your oyster.

Link: http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20091202/articles/912029971?Title=LMH-gets-telemedicine-robot

I am always on the lookout for good educational resources that can be utilized online by residents, practicing physicians, medical students, etc. I found a really great portal called POGO (or the portal of online geriatric education), which is a very thorough database of thousands of materials, both virtual and paper based, that have been created by various institutions to assess and teach geriatric medicine skills. It’s great, I recommend it – once in a while I will post a link to resources that I find especially useful. The link is http://www.pogoe.org/products?lrt_tid%5B%5D=31&ila_tid%5B%5D=250

Happy Holidays!!

For lack of time in exam season I am posting a great link I found instead of my usual postings – I am sure you will find it useful! Happy November!

http://www.canadianstrokestrategy.ca/

Here is a link to the interesting story presented by the CBC about HIV infection rates in older Canadians who winter in Florida: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/11/18/sex-snowbirds-seniors-hiv.html. The research is out of the University of Waterloo, and was presented at this week’s Ontario HIV Treatment Network’s Research at the Front Lines Conference in Toronto http://www.ohtn.on.ca/Pages/Whats-On/2009-ConferenceProgAtAGlance.aspx

I am posting this because one of the things I have noticed is that many of my colleagues as well as older physicians do not talk about issues related to sexual lives of older people. I don’t know if they don’t think this is important, if it is too embarrassing to ask about, or if the perception prevails that older people don’t want to talk about this – but we, as health care professionals, have a duty to ensure that our patients are informed if there is anything that poses a health risk. I truly believe that prevention is the best medicine (where feasible), and I think this is an area that must be delved into just as deeply as their eating habits, drinking, or bowel movements. I mean, we ask about urination and bowels all the time, yet we are too (whatever the right adjective might be) to ask about a very important and relevant part of a person’s life!!

Ok, now that I’ve had my rant:) I think this is a great study, a good start for further research. The caveat in the abstract is that this study is hopefully a prelude to another larger-scale look at whether the HIV infection rates among Floridian seniors are the same (perhaps it’s something about the location!). That said, the details out of the study are alarming to any primary care practitioner in terms of clinical practice and ensuring that all aspects of our older patients’ lives are considered when sitting down with your patient to jointly decide what test needs to be done, how often to show up for follow-up exams, etc