IU GERIATRICS electronic news for July 2002

The IU Geriatrics Program and the IU Center for Aging Research welcome Malaz A. Boustani, MD, MPH, Greg Gramelspacher, MD, and Michael Sha, MD to the faculty this month.

Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH has been appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine after recently completing Clinical Research Curriculum and Geriatric Medicine Fellowships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also earned a Master's Degree in Public Health Care & Prevention in 2002. His IU clinical duties will include consulting in the IU Center for Senior Health and seeing patients in the House Calls for Seniors program and in the Alzheimer's Unit at Lockefield Village. Dr. Boustani joins IUCAR as a Center Scientist and Regenstrief Institute as a Research Scientist.

Greg Gramelspacher, MD is Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Director for Palliative Care at Wishard. Dr. Gramelspacher is joining the Geriatrics Section of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, and the Palliative Care program has formed an exciting partnership with Senior Care at Wishard.

Michael Sha, MD, just completed a geriatric medicine fellowship at IU and will be serving at the Roudebush VA as primary care physician and Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine. Dr. Sha is helping to implement several geriatrics primary care teaching sessions for medical students, residents and fellows at the VA as part of the Hartford Academic Geriatrics Program Development Initiative.

AWARDS

Congratulations to Amna Buttar, MD and her co-authors Tony Perkins, MS, Steve Counsell, MD, and Robert Palmer, MD. Their poster "Acute Care for Elders (ACE) Units: Is it possible to target by reason for admission?" won the Best Poster Award in the Health Services Research category at the 2002 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Geriatrics Society in Washington, DC. We hear it was a very popular poster with Amna reporting no handouts left at the end of the session!

PUBLICATIONS

Bakas T, Burgener SC. Predictors of emotional distress, general health, and caregiving outcomes in family caregivers of stroke survivors. Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation 2002; 9(1), 34-45.

Damush TM, Stump TE, Clark DO. Body-mass index and 4-year change in health-related quality of life. J Aging Health 2002;14(2):195-210.

McHorney CA. The potential clinical value of quality of life information. Med Care 2002;46(6 Suppl) : III-56-III-62.

Perkins AJ, Hui SL, Ogunniyi A, Gureje O, Baiyewu O, Unverzagt FW, Gao S, Hall KS, Musick BS, Hendrie HC. Risk of mortality for dementia in a developing country: the Yoruba in Nigeria. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 2002;17:566-73.

Shugarman LR, Buttar A, Fires BE, Moore T, Blaum C. Caregiver attitudes and hospitalization risk in Michigan residents receiving home-and community-based care. J Amer Geriatr Soc. 2002;50(6);1079-85.

PRESENTATIONS

Gregory P. Gramelspacher, MD, Director of the Palliative Care Program at Wishard Health Services presented "Palliative Care" as the featured speaker on May 2 at the First Annual Cancer Symposium sponsored by the Parkview Regional Cancer Center in Fort Wayne.

Siu L. Hui, PhD presented "Identifying Cognitively Impaired Individuals for Early Intervention Trials" at the Statistical Methodology in Alzheimer's Disease Research Conference May 10-12.

Teresa Damush, PhD presented "A randomized trial of a self-management program for primary care patients with acute low back pain: 4- and 12-month outcomes" at the 5th Annual International Low Back Forum in Montreal May 10. Her co-authors were Weinberger M, Perkins SM, Tierney WM, Rao JK, Clark DO, and Qi A..

Steve Counsell, MD presented the poster "Aging with GRACE: An Innovative Model of Primary Care for Low-Income Seniors" at the AGS annual meeting in May . Co-authors were Amna Buttar, MD, Chris Callahan, MD, Karen Bowers, RN, and Kathy Frank, RN, MSN.

David Wilcox, MD presented "Benefits of a subacute unit in a midwest county-owned nursing facility" at AGS. His poster co-authors were Jackie Sullivan, RN, GNP, Nicole Fields, and Andrea Mott.

Along with IMPACT Project research colleagues, Chris Callahan was a co-author of the poster "Improving Care for Late Life Depression" at AGS.

Steve Counsell was a co-author on two additional posters at AGS: "Steadiness as a predictor of functional change in older hospitalized patients" and "Inadequate income to meet personal and health care needs predicts functional decline and death in older patients discharged from hospital."

Teresa Damush presented "Predictors of nonadherence with 1-year follow up among older adults in a randomized exercise trial" at the May annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in St. Louis. Her poster co-authors were Mikesky AE, Caffrey H, Perkins SM, Roberts M, O'Dea J. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 2002;34:5 Supplement.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

IU Geriatrics Program faculty and staff have been appointed to serve on American Geriatrics Society committees. Effective May 2002, Steve Counsell, MD is Vice Chair of the Public Policy Advisory Group; Amna Buttar, MD, MS serves on the Ethnogeriatrics Committee; and Glenda Westmoreland, MD, MPH and Kathy Frank, RN, MSN serve on the Annual Scientific Program Committee.

Chris Callahan, MD was elected to the Society of General Internal Medicine Council and began serving a three year term beginning May 2002.

The John A. Hartford Foundation, Inc. has awarded a $2 million grant to the Society of General Internal Medicine for a new project "Increasing Education and Research Capacity to Improve Care of Older Americans." The project is part of a long term plan to equip generalist physicians with the tools needed to provide excellent care to the growing population of older Americans. Seth Landefeld, MD at UCSF is the Director of the Program and Chris Callahan is the Co-Director.

Colleen McHorney, PhD attended a June meeting as a member of the Steering Committee for the VA Measurement Excellence Initiative at the Houston Center for Quality of Care and Utilization Studies. The center is one of 11 Veterans Administration Health Services Research and Development field programs.

As an Ameritech Fellow, Glenda Westmoreland, MD, MPH, presented progress on her grant "Web-based Geriatrics Modules for Resident Education: A Randomized Controlled Trial" to attendees at the second annual Ameritech Fellows Summer Forum on June 24. IU established the Ameritech Fellows Program in the fall of 1999, with a gift from SBC Ameritech to support a five-year program of innovation in teaching and learning with technology.

Academic hospitalist, Matt Marvin, MD from University of Kansas Medical Center visited the ACE Unit at Wishard on May 24th to learn about the ACE intervention and residency training in geriatrics related to hospital care of older patients.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The next Aging Research Work in Progress is July 23, 8-9am in VA A-4174. Siu Hui, PhD and Wanzhu Tu, PhD will present "Statistical Issues in Observational Data on Aging."