AGS Spotlight

A growing number of older adults have positive views of sexuality and consider it “an important factor in life,” according to a noteworthy survey published in The British Medical Journal (BMJ) this summer.1 The Swedish survey, which included more than 1500 70-year-olds, also found that the majority were sexually active into their eighth decade.

The results don’t appear to be unique to Sweden. In fact, the survey’s findings parallel those of a survey of 3000 older Americans published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) last fall.2 In that survey, the majority of re...

“No one ever told me how to manage a practice…It’s not something they taught me in med school or residency…where do I start?”

Geriatricians and other healthcare professionals who are focused on the care of older adults know a lot about the determinants of clinical quality and effectiveness, but, perhaps, not as much about the nuts and bolts of organizing a practice, sustaining it, and managing to stay abreast of Medicare rules and regulations, billing, and many other “back office” issues. In addition, ma

The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) recent report, Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, is a much needed wake-up call. If there was any lingering doubt that our aging nation was facing a serious healthcare crisis, the April report dispels it.
The report spotlights key population, recruitment, and training trends that, together, will converge to create this crisis—unless our healthcare system undergoes significant reform. By 2030, it notes that 70 million Americans, or 20% of the popula

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s (MedPAC) March report to Congress was, in one respect, encouraging. While Medicare’s problematic Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula dictates a 10.6% cut in payments to physicians starting July 1, the MedPAC report calls on legislators to increase Medicare physician reimbursement next year.
Now for the discouraging part: The report recommends a mere 1.1% increase in reimbursement in 2009. And it fails to propose a much-needed alternative to the SGR, which automatically mandates cuts

Is private practice in geriatrics really feasible? That’s a question geriatrics professionals in solo and group practices may ask themselves from time to time—particularly in times like these, when proposals to cut Medicare spending are making the rounds in Washington. The question is also the title of one of the presentations in “How to Survive in a Geriatrics Private Practice,” a practical and timely panel discussion scheduled during the American Geriatrics Society’s 2008 Annual Scientific Meeting. The meeting will run from Wednesday, April 30 to Sunday

For older
patients with complex health problems, comprehensive geriatric
assessment, care coordination, and adherence to the principles of
geriatric pharmacology are among the key elements of high-quality
healthcare embodied within the principles of geriatric medicine.
Geriatric assessment is the logical starting point for such care since
it guides and informs all that follows.

Unfortunately, the lack of geriatricians and other geriatrics
healthcare providers is a

Practicing physicians and other healthcare professionals seeking to improve the care they provide to their older patients should benefit from a number of recent projects and programs developed by academic centers through the generous support of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

Six years ago, the Foundation began offering grants to academic health centers to support efforts to develop comprehensive projects that improve geriatrics training for medical students, residents—and practicing clinicians. It has since awarded 30 leading academic centers the four-year grants, which total r...

As many as 44 million Americans care for aging mothers, fathers, aunts, in-laws, and other elderly relatives, and that number will increase dramatically in the coming decades. Caring for an older loved one can be extremely rewarding, but it can also be overwhelming at times. This is particularly true if the older relative has considerable disabilities or dementia—which affects not only the patient, but also everyone surrounding the patient, especially family members who provide direct personal care, assistance with tasks, and supervision.

In the Cardiovascular Health Study, for ex...

Public policy has the potential to profoundly affect clinical care, especially care for older Americans—the majority of whom have healthcare coverage through Medicare. Consider the findings of a recent American Medical Association (AMA) survey of 9000 physicians. Nearly half (45%) said a 10% cut in Medicare payments to healthcare providers that’s mandated for 2008 would force them to see fewer, or stop seeing any, new Medicare patients.

As we know too well, the formula Medicare uses to determine payments to providers is seriously flawed. Known as the Sustainable Growth Rate form...

We and our patients benefit greatly when basic research leads to new approaches to preventing, diagnosing, and treating common health problems. The flow of information from “bench to bedside” is critical to advancing patient care. By the same token, the flow of clinical observations and information from bedside—the clinical setting—to bench is also invaluable. Clinical observations inform basic research.

That’s why it’s good news that the National Institute on Aging (NIA) recently renewed funding for the American Geriatrics Society’s (AGS) “Bedside to Bench” researc...