Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia’s Institute of Gerontology in the College of Public Health has received a $1.26 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration for the continuation of funding of its Georgia Geriatric Education Center. In the next three years, UGA – in conjunction with Mercer University Medical School and the Armstrong Atlantic State University School of Health Professions – will train and re-train health professionals throughout the state in the assessment and treatment of Georgia’s elders.
The mission of the Georgia Geriatric Education Center is to increase health literacy and to train health professionals in the care and safety of older adults, especially in Georgia’s medically-underserved areas. The center, through its interdisciplinary training team, will provide CME and CEU conferences and workshops, supervised on-site clinical training and training through the Internet. Trainees can select from a variety of content areas including geriatric pharmacy, fall prevention, dementia assessment and management, management of problem behaviors, oral health, palliative care, incontinence management, normative and healthy aging, chronic disease management, and professional caregiving management. In addition, interdisciplinary clinical training will be available on movement disorders, seizures, pain, spine problems, delirium, stroke and neuropsychology. Special emphasis will be placed in the training of minority faculty and health professionals in the state of Georgia.
Leonard W. Poon and Anne Glass are the director and associate director of the Georgia Geriatric Education Center. In addition to the faculty and resources at the UGA Institute of Gerontology, faculty from the departments of medicine, psychiatry, neurosurgery, and geriatrics from Mercer University School of Medicine and departments of nursing, gerontology, and dental hygiene from Armstrong Atlantic State University will participate in the training programs.
