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Certificate in Aging
Courses
The Aging Concentration includes a year-long seminar series plus four aging-related courses.
PM439 Seminar Series
on Health and Health Care of the Elderly: The purpose
of this seminar is for students to gain a basic multidisciplinary
perspective as it relates to the health and health care of the
elderly. The Fall 1999 Seminar Series includes seminars on general
topics such as the biology of human aging and women and aging,
disease-specific sessions on areas such as depression and osteoporosis,
and a capstone of four seminars that focus on how health care
is provided to older persons in several settings, including
the ambulatory or outpatient setting and the nursing home. Each
seminar is presented by an expert in the subject area from either
the University of Rochester or the local area. The Spring 2000
Seminar Series will cover a different array of subjects, including
health and health care of rural and inner city elders, employment
and retirement, bioethics in long term care, and aging well.
The course directors for the seminar are Dr. Friedman and Dr.
Mukamel. PM433 Epidemiology
and Public Health of Aging: This course begins with
an overview of major diseases of old age, including heart disease
and stroke, arthritis, falls, and hip fracture, depression and
dementia, visual and hearing loss, and alcoholism. The epidemiologic
transition, the compression of morbidity hypothesis, disability
measures and trends, and data sets that have been used in aging
studies are covered. Health promotion and disease prevention,
evidence-based multidisciplinary geriatric practice, and managed
care models that provide care for older persons are other topics.
Dr. Barker is the course instructor. - Organization and Financing of Health Services for the Elderly:
This course begins with a review of national health expenditures
for the elderly: how much is spent, by whom, and on what. How
the elderly spend their income, public and private financing
of their health care (including Medicare and Medicaid), and
organizational structures of health care delivery especially
significant in the provision of care for the aged (hospitals,
nursing homes, home care, adult day care, and assisted living)
are covered in detail. Quality of care, managed care, case management,
end of life care, and international paradigms of elder care
are discussed. Dr. Mukamel is the course instructor.
- PM441 Methodological Issues in Conducting Research on Elderly
Populations:
The purpose of this course is to gain an appreciation of special
issues that arise in conducting health care research on aged
populations, and to become familiar with different solutions
to minimize problems that either typically occur or whose occurrence
would be likely without knowledge of how to prevent their occurrence.
Topics include ethical issues, survey methods, recruitment issues,
informed consent, informed consent when the study subject has
dementia, use of proxy respondents, and respondent burden, retention,
dropout, and adherence. Physical health status measures used
in studies of older adults are reviewed, as are data sets available
for aging research, including Medicare data, and longitudinal
studies of the health status of aging populations. Issues specific
to research in nursing homes are discussed, as are some statistical
issues. Dr. Friedman is the course instructor.
- Assessing Health Status of Older Adults: Students typically
read about various assessment instruments that are used to measure
the health status of the elderly but often do not have the opportunity
to administer them unless they are in a clinical educational
program. The objective of this course is to give them such experience
through field trips to various settings available in the Rochester
area, including Monroe Community Hospital, nursing homes, assisted
living facilities, home care agencies, PACE (Program for All
Inclusive Care for the Elderly), and ACCESS. Seminars will review
reasons for measuring health status and care needs, general
approaches to assessment, and problems in assessment, such as
reliability and validity, potential versus actual abilities,
and "rosy response" bias. Specific assessment tools for functional
status, mental health and cognitive screening, social functioning,
and quality of life will be reviewed in class before being practiced
on elderly persons in specific settings.
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