AGS - News - AGS Press Release - AGS Conference on Comorbid Conditions Highlights Need for Research Agenda, Clinical Improvements

For Immediate Release:
March 16, 2005

For Further Information:
Erin Weller
(212) 308-1414
eweller@americangeriatrics.org

American Geriatrics Society Conference on Comorbid Conditions Highlights Need for Research Agenda, Clinical Improvements

New York, NY-Seeking to assist health care 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 American Geriatrics Society (AGS) this month convened Research Agenda for Comorbid Disease and Multiple Morbidity in an Aging Society.

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 conferences, collectively known as "From Bedside to Bench," devoted to initiating 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," according to G. Darryl Wieland, PhD, MPH, fellow of the AGS and the member of its Research Committee tapped to serve as the conference grant leader. "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."

Various expert presentations delivered over the course of the conference were devoted to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and alcohol use in comorbidity, changes in physical function in community-dwelling older adults and chronic disease severity classification. Attendees sought to more fully define the public health and clinical problems of comorbidity as indicated by the evidence and lend better conceptual definition its relationship to aging frailty and disability.

Officials at the NIA and AGS have devoted increasing attention to comorbid conditions in recent years as evidenced by the conference and NIA's Comorbidity Task Force. The AGS will present consensus recommendations from the conference at its Annual Scientific Meeting in May.

Founded in 1942, the American Geriatrics Society (www.americangeriatrics.org) is a nationwide, not-for-profit association of geriatrics health care professionals dedicated to improving the health, independence and quality of life of all older people. The Society supports this mission through activities in clinical practice, professional and public education, research and public policy. With an active membership of over 6,500 health care professionals, the Society has become a pivotal force in shaping attitudes, policies and practices in geriatric medicine.