The supporting presentations delivered at the 2018 BGS Autumn meeting may be downloaded here. Files are posted up with presenters' permission in a secured PDF format. They will be available for 2 years and will be published over the next 2 weeks as new publication authorisations come through. It is the presenters responsibility to ensure that there is no copyright infringement.
Wednesday
Anaemia
Dr Simona Deplano - Anaemia and the ageing bone marrow
Dr Deplano works as consultant haematologist at Hammersmith Hospital. She has a special interest in geriatric haematology. She runs a dedicated clinic for patients aged 75 or older with haematological disorders. Dr Deplano completed her specialist training in Italy in 2006. She moved to the UK in 2007 to carry on laboratory research at Imperial College which led to the award of a PhD. Her research interests are: anaemia and bone marrow changes in the elderly, effects of age on chemo-related toxicity and how to prevent it.
Speaker abstract:
• Age-related changes in the bone marrow
• Myelodysplastic syndromes and anaemia of chronic disease
• Anaemia in the frail and management options
• Our experience at Hammersmith Hospital
Community Geriatric Medicine
Dr Eva Kalmus - Why should GPs use data to identify frail older patients and what then?
Dr Eva Kalmus has been a “portfolio GP” for nearly 30 years. She undertook additional posts in Care of the Elderly early in her career and later provided medical input to inpatients at New Epsom and Ewell Community Hospital for 10 years. She was also a Wandsworth Community Ward GP within an MDT focussing on healthcare cost optimisation including admission avoidance. Working in Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust for some years, she has been a GP within the OPALS team, lead GP for a supported discharge and admission avoidance service and lead doctor in two newly established post-Acute wards.
Speaker abstract:
• GPs have an intuitive understanding of something now called “frailty”
• We are incentivised to identify patients with frailty using eFI followed by clinical correlation. Patients so identified need to be offered some further (evidence based) interventions but this can feel like just another job piled onto an already unmanageable workload.
• However, we can positively change the journey of these patients once we have a grip on what frailty is.
Case studies:
• What GPs interested in providing person-centred care for older people need to know and what is still to be learnt. Work collaboratively with geriatrician colleagues including attending BGS events
• GeriGPs are becoming part of the answer: promoting different ways of working and preventing professional isolation for those already undertaking these new roles
Dr Maggie Keeble - A GP's approach to quality end of life care in care homes
Dr Maggie Keeble works two days a week as a Care Home GP looking after 160 residents in five different homes. She has always had an interest in End of Life and Palliative Care and having done a Diploma in Palliative Care in 2012 she decided to leave her GP practice to focus on the Care of Older People and in particularly on the area of Palliative and End of Life Care in Frailty. In addition she has recently taken up the role of Strategic Clinical Lead for Integrated Care for Older People living with Frailty in Worcestershire.
Thursday
Association of Academic Geriatric Medicine symposium
Prof Helen Roberts - Current care provision: a UK survey
Professor Helen Roberts is Professor of Medicine for Older People at the University of Southampton and national lead for the NIHR Comprehensive Research Network Ageing Speciality Group. Her research interests include the translation of research evidence on the assessment and management of sarcopenia and frailty in older people into clinical practice.
Speaker abstract:
A national survey of provision of acute care was developed, validated and sent to 175 Trusts. Service provision was patchy, poorly standardised, and in surgical and oncology settings, did not usually involve geriatric teams. Most services relied on clinical assessment processes to identify patients; 26% used a standardised method to identify frailty
Bereavement
Dame Barbara Monroe - Bereavement in older age
Barbara was a social worker for over 40 years. She joined St Christopher’s Hospice, London in 1987 and was CEO there between 2000 and 2014. She has lectured on numerous national and international programmes and written extensively about psychological and social aspects of palliative care. Barbara was Vice Chair of the Commission on the Future of Hospice Care which reported in 2013 and has sat on a variety of national committees supporting the development of end of life care.
Speaker abstract:
This session will provide an overview of recent developments in our understanding of grief and bereavement and consider features specific to older age. It will examine research on risk factors for complicated grief and the efficacy of interventions
Guest lecture
Dr John Beard - New thinking on the measurement and monitoring of healthy ageing
John Beard, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., is Director of the Department of Ageing and Life Course with the World Health Organization in Geneva. He was a lead editor and writer for the first World report on ageing and health released in 2015. The political mandate for this action is provided by the Global Strategy and Action Plan on Ageing and Health which was developed by Dr Beard’s team and adopted by WHO’s 194 Member States in 2016. Dr Beard’s team is responsible for a number of major global initiatives. In 2012, he established the WHO Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities. Other ongoing work includes the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) programme that is developing innovative and country-specific strategies to deliver integrated health and social care for older people.
Dr Beard has held a range of senior public health and academic roles in Australia and the USA. He works closely with the World Economic Forum and is past chair of their Global Agenda Council on Ageing and a current member of their Council on the Future of Human Enhancement. He was a co-editor of the 2014 Lancet series on Ageing, and of special issues of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization on “Women Beyond Reproduction” and “Healthy Ageing”. He remains actively involved in several large international research projects, with a particular interest in the influence of the physical, social and economic environments on health.
Friday
Sarcopenia and frailty - research into practice
Dr Alfonso J Cruz-Jentoft - New developments in sarcopenia: findings from the second European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP)
Dr Cruz-Jentoft is the head of the Geriatric Department at the Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal in Madrid (Spain). He chairs the Spanish Board of Geriatric Medicine. He is past president of the European Geriatric Medicine Society and belongs to the Academic Board of this organization. He chairs the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP).
Speaker abstract:
• This session will be focused on the presentation of the updated 2018 EWGSOP definition on sarcopenia. The former 2010 version of this consensus is the most widely used definition of this condition worldwide.
• Participants will understand the major advances made in the new definition and the reasons that prompted the update.
• They will also have an overview of the most relevant open research areas in this field.
Dr Richard Dodds - A life course approach to sarcopenia: informing future interventions
Richard Dodds is an intermediate clinical fellow at Newcastle University and an honorary consultant at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He previously undertook a Wellcome Trust fellowship on the epidemiology of changes in muscle strength across the life course. He is interested in the clinical assessment of sarcopenia and the biological mechanisms that underpin the age-related loss of muscle mass and strength.
Speaker abstract:
Simple tests of muscle function such as grip strength reach a peak in mid-life and then have a period of broad maintenance prior to decline. An improved understanding of these age-related changes, including those occurring in skeletal muscle tissue, has the potential to improve the prevention and treatment of sarcopenia.
Clinical quality
Finbarr Martin - QI and Age & Ageing
Finbarr Martin was consultant geriatrician at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (London) until 2016, working in and developing a broad range of acute and community clinical services. He was awarded a personal chair in Medical Gerontology at King’s College London in 2011 and remains active in academic and policy work, with particular interest in the clinical management and improving the health service provision related to geriatric syndromes of falls, frailty and delirium. He was president of the British Geriatrics Society 2010-12, a non-executive director of NICE 2013-2016, and is currently president of the European Geriatric Medicine Society.
Speaker abstract:
• Healthcare quality improvement aims to make healthcare more safe, effective, patient-centred, timely, efficient and equitable improvement, bridging the gap between what we know should happen and what does happen.
• Success requires applying scientific understanding from a range of disciplines encompassing quantitative and qualitative methods.
• This is core business for most readers of Age and Ageing.
• We will describe what potential authors and readers can expect from the newly launched QI section of the Journal.
Movement disorders
Dr Rimona Weil - Update on dementia with lewy bodies
Dr Rimona Weil is a Consultant Neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square and Wellcome Clinician Scientist at the UCL Dementia Research Centre. She specializes in Parkinson’s dementia and Dementia with Lewy Bodies. Her research focuses on detecting early signs of dementia in Parkinson’s disease using visual measures combined with brain and retinal imaging.
Speaker abstract:
This session will cover 9 new things to be aware of in Dementia with Lewy bodies, with a focus on clinical practice. It will include updates on diagnosis and treatment.