Context: Home-based comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) has been effective in urban areas but has had little study in rural areas. CGA involves medical history taking, a physical exam, and evaluation of functional status, mental status, cognitive status, gait and balance, medications, vision, extent of social supports, and home safety. We…

Purpose: Making good consumer decisions requires having good information. This study compared long-term-care recommendations among various types of health professionals. Design and Methods: We gave randomly varied scenarios to a convenience national sample of 211 professionals from varying disciplines and work locations. For each scenario, we…

The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and the Wisconsin Geriatric Education Center (WGEC) are committed to developing educational materials for primary care physicians in training. In response to the opportunity created by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) competency mandate, an MCW-led interdisciplinary working…

A pilot program at the University of California, Davis, that incorporated skilled nursing facility training into the required curriculum of their primary care internal medicine residency is described. The goal was to increase the residents' knowledge in the care of geriatric patients. (MLW)

Pharmacists (N=233) responded to the question "What is the most difficult aspect of geriatric pharmacy practice?" Most commonly cited problems were (1) inadequate professional skills or knowledge in geriatrics; (2) patient compliance; (3) physician functioning (including overprescribing of medications); (4) communication with the elderly; (5) lack…

Purpose: This study examined medical students' interest in geriatrics: Are knowledge, positive attitudes, and prior experience with older adults associated with an interest in geriatric medicine? Design and Methods: Entering University of Michigan medical students completed three surveys: the Revised Facts on Aging Quiz, the University of…

The Gaylord White Project, a pilot program in the use of television to promote the health and well-being of the elderly, used bi-directional cable television to deliver programs to the residents of a low-income, East Harlem housing project for the aged. For 15 months, health education and community information messages were delivered to…

Forces acting on medical education and compelling a reexamination of current approaches include cost containment, competition and price sensitivity, new technologies, the physician surplus, and a rapidly expanding, politically assertive aging population. (MSE)

This background paper, prepared by two members of the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Strengthening the Geriatric Content of Medical Education, addresses the progress made in physicians' geriatric and gerontological education. The report appears in six chapters. After a brief introduction on health care reform and medical education, geriatric…

Increasingly, the health care needs of older people are dominating the field of medicine and the health care system. The supply of physician gerontologists and geriatricians, the attention they pay to the special needs of the elderly, and the adequacy of their training are addressed in these hearings, which consider a Senate bill to improve the…

Demographic and utilization date are used to project the need for physicians to provide care for the elderly over the next 50 years. The quantitative estimates are coupled with qualitative analyses leading to recommendations for means to deliver the needed services. Estimates are that the United States will require about 8,000 geriatricians by…

Responses from 20% of 3,850 nurses, pharmacists, physicians, physician assistants, and social workers surveyed, from rural and urban areas, displayed variability in preferred continuing education program length and a preference for self-directed learning. Lack of financial aid and preference for local events suggested that programs requiring…

Regulations instituted by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare effective in 1976 require skilled nursing facilities (SNF) to provide either a physician serving as medical director, or to have an organized medical staff. This report describes how SNFs responded, and what the effects were on their operations. Descriptive data were…

A survey of 1,139 Virginia family practitioners and internal medicine specialists investigated interest in pursuing geriatric education, including such factors as preferred form of education, preferred topics, intent to take the geriatric medicine qualifying examination, geriatric care provided, home visits, prior participation in geriatrics…

Explores nature of physician decision making in the case of elderly who reside in the community. Interviews with 40 physicians revealed 3 dilemma sources: (1) how much to intervene in patients' lives to reduce risk; (2) structural, moral, and medical limits to patient advocacy; and (3) assessing vulnerability and quality of life when pondering…