IAGG Conference Wrap-Up

Bridging Science, Policy, Practice

By Barbara Worthington

The IAGG World Congress, held July 23–27 in San Francisco, was designed to promote high levels of achievement in gerontological and geriatrics research and training worldwide, offering practical solutions to problems specific to older adults. The gathering attracted more than 6,000 attendees from all over the world, with clinicians and researchers from the United States, Canada, Japan, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Colombia, the Netherlands, Ghana, Mexico, and numerous other countries.

The theme “Global Aging and Health: Bridging Science, Policy and Practice” brought together aging experts in the fields of medicine, nursing, biological science, social science, caregiving, and health care policy to address ways of improving older adults’ quality of life. The scope of the conference was impressive. While sessions and presentations spanned areas including medicine, nursing, behavioral science, interdisciplinary topics, and geriatrics, if there was a single topic that garnered the greatest interest, it was dementia/Alzheimer’s disease.

The many sessions that provided a wealth of information included Sleep and Wellness in Aging; Influenza Immunization: Helping to Prevent Disease in Older Adults; Technology and Aging; Optimizing Pain Detection and Management in Older Adults Unable to Communicate; Reducing Polypharmacy; Frailty as a Predictor of Mortality; Prevalence of Hearing Impairment; Fall Risk, Prevention, and Education; Delirium in Hospitalized Patients; Chronic Conditions in Older Adults; Advancing Hospital Care in Older Adults; and Mental Health and Aging.

New technologies continue to evolve. One interesting theme was using robots to address the psychosocial, health, and functional needs of older adults. Several innovations involved autonomous vehicles, representing a new front in older adults’ independence. One particularly impressive device was a “smart walker,” which was able to detect uneven and inclined surfaces and brake to slow the speed of the wheeled walker on downhill inclines to reduce fall risk. Additional work and testing are necessary on some innovations but the future is promising for improving older adults’ quality of life.

The focus of a symposium, Telenutrition Care for Rural Older Adults Improves Weight Loss, is detailed below.

In many rural areas, treating chronic diseases related to diet and weight is challenging because of limited access to food and nutrition experts. A West Virginia University (WVU) professor has found that using technology to connect those experts with middle-aged and older patients in those areas can improve nutritional health.

Midlife and older adults represent the fastest-growing segment of the US population. They have higher rates of obesity, chronic disease, and disability than previous generations and younger adults. “Research has shown that many of the chronic diseases faced by this age group are preventable through diet and physical activity,” says Melissa Ventura Marra, PhD, an assistant professor of human nutrition and foods in the WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design.

Marra is part of a multistate research team evaluating how food security and lifestyle choices such as diet quality and physical activity affect individual health and well-being.

The project includes a broad range of research, from basic science to social science, from 13 universities around the country. A team of scientists from the group presented their findings during the IAGG symposium “Successes in Older Adult Nutrition and Physical Activity Studies,” the result of a USDA-funded multistate research project that began in 1989.

The research project examines three areas: molecular and mechanistic understanding of how nutrients and activity can influence age-related diseases, environmental factors that influence the adoption of health-promoting lifestyle changes, and lifestyle needs assessment and evaluation of lifestyle interventions that lead to measurable outcomes.

Marra is involved in several studies that are part of the overarching project. At the symposium she presented information on a pilot project that was conducted in Harrison County, West Virginia, that assessed the use of telenutrition to achieve weight loss and improvements in diet in a group of middle-aged and older men.

Telenutrition uses various technologies to implement nutrition care. It’s similar to Skype or FaceTime, but its purpose is to deliver nutrition care directly to patients in their homes. “Telenutrition is a form of telehealth that has the potential to increase access to nutrition care, particularly to people in rural areas where alternatives may be lacking,” Marra says. “If patients do not have access to high-speed internet, they can receive telenutrition services at their local health care provider’s office, which increases access to nutrition care in rural areas.”

The goal of her study was to determine whether patients would be interested in participating in a telenutrition program for weight loss, which included weekly interaction with a registered dietitian, and whether the program would be more effective than a group who received only diet-related literature.

“The results from the pilot study were encouraging,” Marra says. “Because of the support from the doctors in the community, we had enough interest in the program that we ended up with a waiting list.”

Results of the study showed that 70% of patients in the intervention group lost at least 5% of their body weight compared with 40% of those in the control group. “This is important because losing as little as 3% of initial body weight can have clinical significance,” Marra says.

In order to gather more information about the effectiveness of telenutrition, Marra plans to expand the study to conduct a larger longer-term trial. “We were happy so many patients lost weight, but helping them maintain the weight loss and new dietary habits is even more important,” she says.

— Barbara Worthington is editor of Today’s Geriatric Medicine.