This discussion of geriatric rehabilitation stresses the importance of holistic and permanent rehabilitation with a fluent transition from the acute phase to the rehabilitation phase under one specialist's care and in one institution. Recommendations include mixed age groups in one ward; systematic education of relatives; follow-up rehabilitation…

Despite growing need, geriatrics education has been slow to develop in higher education. Much of it is conducted in informal frameworks--for example, a study center of a national service organization for the elderly in Israel and a geriatrics institute in a hospital. Both formal and informal programs are needed. (SK)

Describes program in which satellite clinics in three apartment buildings for seniors and disabled adults bring primary health care services to individuals. Explains how clinical nurse specialist, social worker, and physician work as team to help clients remain functional and independent, and how health education programs, counseling, and staff…

Efforts to prepare faculty to teach students to work with culturally diverse populations of older adults included conferences on course content and instructional methods and minifellowships in ethnogeriatrics. Most faculty reported changing course content to include knowledge gained from the training. (SK)

From 1985-1992 the Virginia Geriatric Education Center broadcast via satellite 22 videoconferences involving over 22,000 health professionals in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda. The program required substantial marketing to attract sufficiently large audiences to be cost effective, was labor intensive, and necessitated technical expertise.…

The first four years of a summer faculty development program were evaluated through participant surveys, quarterly trainee logs, and reports of participant projects. The program received consistently high ratings; number of courses with gerontology/geriatrics content increased; and trainees went on to train peers, students, and laypersons. (SK)

Survey of sample of members and nine-month study of all members of comprehensive geriatric program at one hospital revealed that surveyed members joined the program for its reasonable cost but continued with it because of good health care. Medical care and no claim forms or bills were two services surveyed members valued and used more. (Author/NB)

Interdisciplinary teams are loosely coupled (systems in which elements are weakly, infrequently, or informally linked). Applying loosely coupled systems theory to team training increases its effectiveness, because learning activities may be disjointed and learning goals may diverge. (SK)

In a study of the discourse of 100 people with Alzheimer's disease treated for 12 months with donepezil, we observed that, as a group, they used a form of tag, described here as a self-referential tag (SRT), 14 times more frequently than did caregivers. Patients use SRTs to check propositions dependent on episodic memory as in I haven't seen the…

Over the last 20 years, older people have served as teachers for students as part of the formal curriculum in geriatrics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. In recent years, we have supported a more in-depth, longitudinal experience that connects medical students with elders in the community. The program was initiated as a special…

This volume contains materials presented at a one-day conference on family support for the care of older adults. Checklists and guides are included on evaluating and meeting the needs of older persons. A discussion guide for those taking care of older parents covers ways in which to support the older persons and the entire family. Several…

Male extended-care patients (N=81) relocated due to planned demolition of the building in which their ward was located were followed for 21 months in an effort to examine the influence of relocation on mortality. Results show no increased mortality thus suggesting the degree of environmental change may be important. Paper presented at Canadian…

A sample of 65 healthy males (31 to 75 years old) memorized lists of six letters (familiar or unfamiliar organization). Age-related differences in the unfamiliar condition could not be wholly accounted for by psychomotor factors. The distributions of response latencies in the oldest groups had greater variance and skew. (Author)