Resource Center

Rhode Island College has spearheaded state-wide age-friendly initiatives while simultaneously fostering three principles of Age-Friendly Universities on its campus. This article published in Gerontology & Geriatrics Education describes the initiatives implemented at Rhode Island College and the challenges encountered. Solutions to the challenges are suggested. The full article can be accessed with an OpenAthens account through your institution or with a Taylor & Francis Online account. 

This article published in Gerontology & Geriatrics Education presents findings from an exploratory study based primarily on interviews about intercultural gerontology curriculum with university-based stakeholders from Canada, the US, and Europe. Scaffolding learning, active learning strategies, experiential learning opportunities, teacher modeling, and internet-based learning are discussed as key to intercultural learning. An appendix includes a list of resources that may be useful to developing an intercultural gerontology curriculum.

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) published "Older Adults: Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes--2020" which includes the ADA's current clinical practice recommendations and is intended to provide the components of diabetes care, general treatment goals and guidelines, and tools to evaluate quality of care.

The STOPP/START Toolkit Supporting Medication Review, arranged by physiological systems, assists in the review of older adults' prescriptions (STOPP) and includes guidelines to alert the practitioner to the right treatment (START). It also has references to drug class duplication, drug-drug, and drug-disease interactions. The START tool highlights under-prescription or omission of clinically indicated, evidence-based medications. The Supplementary Material file has the full set of STOPP/START guidelines.

This article from the Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging provides concensus guidelines from the International Conference on Frailty and Sarcopenia (ICFSR) on practical frailty screening and management strategies for use in primary care settings. It also discusses the characteristics of these instruments and their applicability to primary care.

Source: The Journal of Nutrition, Health, & Aging, 2020.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33155616/

Objective. Preparing and responding to the needs of children during public health emergencies continues to be challenging. The purpose of this study was to assess the usefulness of a tabletop exercise in initiating pediatric preparedness strategies and assessing the impact of the exercise on participants’ understanding of and confidence in their roles during pediatric public health emergencies.

Background. We assessed whether and how health care organizations serving homeless pediatric patients meet recommendations issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Methods. We conducted a web-based survey of Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) Program grantees serving children. Results. Of 169 grantees, 77 (46%) responded. All organizations reported connecting patients to specialty services.

Background and Objectives: Multilevel factors drive health disparities experienced by sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations. We developed a 3-hour symposium focusing on care for SGM youth to address this. The symposium was a free, extracurricular event open to the public, with an emphasis on health professional students and providers from all disciplines and involved interprofessional didactic and interactive components.

Objectives: Virtual tabletop exercises (VTTXs) simulate disaster scenarios to help participants improve their emergency-planning capacity. The objectives of our study were to (1) evaluate the effectiveness of a VTTX in improving preparedness capabilities specific to children’s needs among pediatricians and public health practitioners, (2) document follow-up actions, and (3) identify exercise strengths and weaknesses.

This article describes a valuable activity to teach health professions students – the interprofessional geriatric case competition. This program brought together students from multiple health professions to design and present a comprehensive care plan using a simulated complex geriatric patient case. Student participants demonstrated beginning skills in interprofessional collaboration based on the IPEC competencies.