Last month, the Foundation hosted a meeting of heads of divisions of geriatric medicine from around the U.S. as part of our leadership grant to the Association for Academic Geriatric Programs (ADGAP). This annual meeting is an expression of one of the "non-monetary" powers of foundations to convene a field…
Read full postLast week, I was asked by a reporter why we do what we do. The answer goes back 80 years when Mr. Hartford established the foundation that bears his name. His wealth came from one of the country's first large retail empires, the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, which…
Read full postIn the late 1980s, my grandmother started wandering from her home, leaving stove burners on, and occasionally forgetting where she was. My father, my aunts, and I knew it was time to act. The trouble was, my father and his two sisters had been at odds for years. The skills…
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When you're an older adult, being released from the hospital can be even more daunting than getting admitted in the first place. I've seen discharge instructions so confusing they would befuddle a medical professional, let alone an older adult who may struggle with eyesight, hearing, or even thinking and remembering…
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We were delighted to see Guided Care featured in Anne Underwood's March 31 post to the New Old Age blog, on the New York Times Web site (http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/). We're proud of the support the John A. Hartford Foundation has been able to give to Guided Care and encouraged to see…
Read full postRecruiting medical students into geriatrics is an important way to work toward improving older Americans' health care, but doing so requires helping these future professionals embrace a fundamentally different perspective on "healing" and patient care. Unlike most medical specialties, which narrow their focus to diseases of discrete systems in the…
Read full postOn behalf of the John A. Hartford Foundation, I am pleased to welcome you to our new blog, Health AGEnda, which is dedicated to introducing aging and geriatrics into the broader conversation around health, health care, and health policy. We here at the Foundation are excited about this new effort…
Read full postIt doesn't take very much for things to go very wrong in the health of an older person. While we all must be grateful for the better health and longer lifespan than ever before for older Americans, these are often precarious states and dependent upon health care providers who may…
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Recently we have been mourning the passing of a giant in the field of geriatrics and gerontology. Mark Beers, MD, well known for his editorship of the Merck Manuals on Geriatrics; Health and Aging; and other topics, as well as his research revealing the dangerous side effects of psychoactive medications…
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It was with great excitement that I went back to my alma mater, Columbia University School of Social Work, eight years after I graduated with my MSW to speak to their newly formed Student Aging Caucus. My presentation, The Future of Social Work and Aging, traced my academic and professional…
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