Despite the growth in the elderly population, physicians with special geriatric training and certification number only 9,000 out of 650,000 doctors in the United States. The flexibility and increasing availability of the Internet makes it an ideal avenue for addressing the educational needs of health care providers to improve the health and care…

In 2000, the Senior Mentor Program was implemented as an innovative, instructional method in the University of South Carolina's medical school curriculum designed to enhance and strengthen student training in geriatrics. This study qualitatively analyzed second-year medical students' and senior participants' perceptions of and attitudes towards…

Purpose: The psychiatric home visit is an effective intervention for elderly patients who otherwise would not receive mental health services. Home visits also have potential to be useful for training. Here, the current practice of home visits in geropsychiatry fellowship programs is examined. Design and Methods: The directors of 55 current…

Depression is a prevalent and serious problem among nursing home residents. Nursing home staff members are gatekeepers for mental health treatment for residents, but may know little about depression and its management. We evaluated a didactic workshop for nursing home staff on depressive symptoms and management. Results for 58 staff participants…

Purpose: This article reviews the effectiveness of a new training program for improving nursing staffs' detection of depression within long-term care facilities. The course was designed to increase recognition of the Minimal Data Set (MDS) Mood Trigger items, to be brief, and to rely on images rather than didactics. Design and Methods: This study…

Most of the world's rapidly expanding aging population is in rural areas of developing countries. Geriatric training programs should include social, economic, and psychological aspects of aging as well as medical, and should focus on enabling primary health caregivers to care for older people in their environments. Efforts to provide rural…

Gerontology, geriatrics, and aging studies (GGA) academic programs are charged to produce competent graduates to work in the field of aging. The Association for Gerontology in Higher Education recommends core courses that are required in GGA academic programs throughout the United States. This article reports findings on the role of the core…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether training with a multimedia tutorial would have an impact on LPN students' knowledge of dementia care, attitudes toward dementia care, and self-efficacy ratings. A total of 38 nursing students participated. Pre-post comparisons of outcome measures revealed significant improvements in knowledge,…

The Professional Development Program (PDP) of Rockefeller College of the State University of New York, in partnership with the Eddy/Northeast Health of Troy, New York, conducted a 3-year demonstration project to provide and foster institutionalization of a functionally contextual workplace literacy curriculum and training program to upgrade the…

Making geriatric education available to rural faculty/preceptors, students, and practitioners presents many challenges. Often the only options considered for educating those in the health professions about geriatrics are either traditional face-to-face courses or distance education programs. The purpose of this paper was to examine the use of…

The status of Florida health professions education is reviewed in this commission report, which provides information on enrollment and graduate levels, market place demand for graduates and new policy issues. After an introduction that summarizes the commission charge, commission activities, purpose and scope, background, health professions…

This pilot study's purpose was to evaluate behavioral changes among medical directors and physicians following CME on risk management in long-term care (LTC) facilities. The setting was a satellite conference at the AGS Meeting Symposium 2000. CME participants included 51 medical directors, attending physicians, and nurses. Evaluations were based…