In geriatric care, movement support skills of nurses are often limited, resulting in unnecessary functional decline of older adult residents and physical strain of nurses. Kinaesthetics training aims to improve movement competences of nurses and residents. The aim of this qualitative descriptive study is to describe nursing teams' experience with…

Medical schools must consider innovative ways to ensure that graduates are prepared to care for the aging population. One way is to offer a geriatrics clerkship as an option for the fulfillment of a medical school's internal medicine rotation requirement. The authors' purpose was to evaluate the geriatrics clerkship's impact on internal medicine…

Quality improvement (QI) initiatives are critical in the care of older adults who are more vulnerable to substandard care. QI education meets aspects of core Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education competencies and prepares learners for the rising focus on performance measurement in health care. The authors developed, implemented, and…

Brown Medical School developed a comprehensive curriculum in which enriched aging content increased from 22 to 80 hours in preclerkship courses and was also added for clerkships, residencies, and nongeriatrician physicians. Innovative evaluation strategies are also described. Highlights include "treasure hunts" in the anatomy laboratory, a…

The University of Saskatchewan's Longitudinal Elderly Person Shadowing (LEPS) is an interprofessional senior mentors program (SMP) where teams of undergraduate students in their first year of medicine, pharmacy, and physiotherapy; 2nd year of nutrition; 3rd year nursing; and 4th year social work partner with community-dwelling older adults.…

The purpose of the ELDER (Expanded Learning and Dedication to Elders in the Region) Project was to address the needs of underserved older adults by providing worksite education to individuals who provide nursing care to older adults in community health centers, home health agencies, and long-term care facilities. Four agencies located in a Health…

Medical graduates require positive attitudes toward older people with cognitive impairment, in addition to knowledge and skills in the diagnosis and management of dementia. The Student Training Project in Dementia (STriDE) project was conducted to ensure that these needs are met through curricula in Western Australian medical schools. Two medical…

Electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) can be useful for evaluating and documenting mastery of competencies. We investigated geriatric medicine fellows' perceptions of an ePortfolio. We conducted surveys and focus groups followed by quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Our study revealed that fellows considered the ePortfolio acceptable and…

The current study evaluated barriers to detection of depression among older people. Focus groups were conducted with 21 professional carers, 4 nurses, 10 general practitioners, and 7 aged care managers. The results demonstrated that care for older people is primarily focused on physical care. Further, staff resources, a lack of continuity of care,…

Virginia Commonwealth University developed an enhanced medical student geriattic curriculum that includes required home visits and nursing home visits for second year students (180 per year), an annual Forum on Aging for all first and second year students, and small group exercises. We added 30 hours of basic science material to pre-clinical…

A four-year faculty development program to enhance geriatrics learning among house officers in seven surgical and related disciplines and five medical subspecialties at a large academic institution resulted in changes in attitudes and knowledge of faculty participants, expanded curricula and teaching activities in geriatrics, and enhanced and…

Purpose: This article reports on a study to identify "building blocks" for quality report cards for geriatric care. Its aim is to present (a) the results of the study and (b) the innovative step-by-step approach that was developed to arrive at these results. Design and Methods: We used Concept Mapping/Structured Conceptualization to…

During the coming years the need for professionals to work with the nation's elders will increase several fold. This will place a great responsibility on university educational programs to prepare enough qualified future professionals to work in the greatly expanding field of gerontology. Prior research has identified several nonacademic and…

Outcomes of focus groups and telephone interviews of 403 gerontology providers identified training needs, logistics of delivery, and preferred delivery methods. Results were used to develop a framework for a multilevel curriculum to address the needs of three levels of trainees. (SK)

Three focus groups of service agency representatives, state administrators, and rural service providers in Georgia identified their needs for geriatrics training, and barriers to accessing training. Results underscored the need for coordinated continuing-education planning. (SK)