AGS/NIA "BEDSIDE TO BENCH" CONFERENCES

To help healthcare providers and patients who could benefit from a more expansive body of research on the influence of multiple, overlapping health problems on older adults' quality of life, the AGS convened a conference, Research Agenda for Comorbid Disease and Multiple Morbidity in an Aging Society, in March 2005. The three-day conference in Atlanta, made possible by a Series R13 Grant from the National Institute on Aging, is the second of three AGS-initiated "From Bedside to Bench" conferences aimed at furthering progress in understudied research areas essential to improved health outcomes in later life.

"A great deal of research is thought to exclude older subjects with significant comorbidity or multiple diseases," noted G. Darryl Wieland, PhD, MPH, who led the conference. "As a result, definitions and measurements are not easily accessible to geriatric care providers. Placing current knowledge and conventional wisdom about comorbidity into the context of caring for an aging population will ultimately lead to more research and improvements in clinical practice."

The conference examined the public health and clinical problems of comorbidity and its relationship to aging, frailty and disability. Consensus recommendations from the conference were presented at a special 2005 AGS Annual Meeting symposium, which can be accessed as part of the AGS 2005 Virtual Annual Meeting.