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For Immediate Release
May 11, 2005

For Further Information:
Mary Anne Shannon
(212) 308-1414 x301

Orlando, FL - New findings and perspectives on lowering risks of falls with vitamin D supplementation; preventing, delaying, and treating Alzheimer's disease; managing multiple health problems in the elderly; and controversies surrounding mild cognitive impairment in the aging are among the highlights of the American Geriatrics Society's 2005 Annual Meeting. The conference, the premier scientific meeting for geriatrics health care providers, educators, and researchers, begins today and runs through May 15.

More than 1,000 geriatrics experts and researchers will present research papers and posters, symposia, and workshops during the five-day meeting. The American Geriatrics Society will also release its watershed report, "Caring for Older Americans: The Future of Geriatric Medicine." According to the report, which will be released Thursday, May 12, the current shortage of geriatricians, and other health care professionals trained to care for older adults, could reach crisis proportions in the next 25 years, when aging Baby Boomers will double the population of Americans 65 and older.

"Our report is a call to action, a call to take the necessary steps to safeguard the health of our growing older population," said Meghan Gerety MD, President of the American Geriatrics Society. "Not only do we need to attract more health care professionals to geriatrics, we need to train and fund more geriatrics researchers. There's a tremendous amount we need to know, and can learn, through research. The important research findings that will be presented during our meeting attest to that."

Meeting Presentations include:

Thursday, May 12: Plenary Paper Session Researchers presenting at this session submitted the meeting's highest-scoring abstracts, as judged by a panel of their peers.

A higher dose of Vitamin D reduces the risk of falls Douglas P. Kiel, MD, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the director of medical research at the Boston-based Hebrew Senior Life center, will present findings from a study of 125 nursing home residents receiving differing doses of vitamin D. Those getting 800 IU, Dr. Kiel and colleagues found, had a 71% reduction in risk of falls compared with those getting lower doses or a placebo.

Patients' end-of-life treatment preferences change as their illnesses progress Terri Fried, MD, an associate professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine and an attending physician with the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, will present findings from a study of 226 seriously ill older adults. Roughly every 4 months, for two years, Dr. Fried and colleagues asked these adults about their treatment preferences. As their illnesses progressed, the researchers found, patients were less likely to say they would consider treatments that were associated with an increased risk of death or cognitive impairment.

The disconnect between health services research and practice and policy Hsien Seow, a research assistant and quality improvement team leader at Rand Health's Center for Palliative Care Studies, will report on a study examining the extent to which research findings are carried over into practice and influence health policy. She and colleagues used research regarding management of chronic heart failure (CHF) as a test case. They found that CHF disease management programs that proved successful during research trials were often discontinued, usually for lack of funding. They also found that CHF research findings "had little connection to recent reforms in Medicare about CHF disease management."

Thursday, May 12: State-of-the-art lecture on preventing, delaying, and treating Alzheimer's disease Jeffrey L. Cummings, MD, professor of psychiatry, behavioral science, and neurology, and director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA will give the lecture, on the latest findings in the field. Dr. Cummings is also the Chair of the National Institute on Aging's Review Committee of Pilot Studies of Treatments for Alzheimer's Disease.

Thursday, May 12: Symposium on Mild Cognitive Impairment Jason H. Karlawish, MD, an assistant professor in geriatrics, a fellow in the Institute on Aging, and a faculty member in the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, will moderate the symposium. Dr. Karlawish and three other researchers will cover the latest findings on mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and surrounding controversies. Increasingly, physicians are diagnosing MCI in people whose cognitive abilities lie somewhere between those associated with normal aging and those associated with Alzheimer's disease. But what, precisely, constitutes MCI, to what extent it increases risk of Alzheimer's, and how it should be treated remain topics of pointed debate.

Friday, May 13: Symposium on Co-morbidity. Moderated by G. Darryl Wieland, PhD, Deputy Editor of the Journal of Gerontology, this symposium will present the findings of a March consensus conference that was jointly sponsored by the AGS and the National Institute on Aging. Speakers will provide an overview of recent findings on co-morbidity and multiple morbidity --the occurrence of two or more concurrent health problems -- in older adults. Adults 75 and older have, on average, two or three health problems. Co-morbidity and multiple morbidity can complicate treatment, and raise risks of frailty.

Founded in 1942, the American Geriatrics Society (http://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 6,700 health care professionals, the Society has become a pivotal force in shaping attitudes, policies and practices in geriatric medicine.