Conference Workshops: Come Early and Strengthen Your Skills

To best meet the needs of the aging population, interventions (behavioral, biobehavioral, biomedical, and social-structural) must not only be effective, but also reach the population they are designed to impact. Prevailing methods for intervention development fall short of this goal. This workshop will provide an introduction to an innovative approach to intervention development: intervention optimization, and specifically the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST). An optimized intervention is one that strategically balances effectiveness against affordability, scalability, and efficiency. This workshop will provide an introduction to MOST, and provide participants an opportunity to design their own conceptual model and optimization trial through activities. At the end of the workshop, participants will be prepared to seek funding to optimize interventions. A new generation of optimized interventions has the potential to best meet the needs of the aging population and achieve public health impact.

The AGHE Program of Merit (POM) review process advances gerontology and health professions programs. The Program of Merit has expanded its review to include any health professions program applications with specific guidelines and competencies dedicated to Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine and Doctor of Pharmacy programs. Broad guidelines and competencies are published for all other health professions programs. For successful POM applicants, the AGHE POM provides gerontology programs and those health disciplines that integrate geriatrics/gerontology content into the curriculum with an AGHE distinguished program designation. This designation verifies program quality to administrators to assist with lobbying additional resources, maintaining program quality, marketing the program, and recruiting prospective students. This workshop will begin with the “Why,” “What” and “How” of applying for the AGHE POM. Time is allocated for POM application and program development FREE consultation. Institutions need not be an AGHE member to apply!

This workshop is 1) discussing the need for structural collaborations between academia and practice, and 2) presenting the Dutch Living Lab in Ageing and Long-Term Care, a successful model of sustainable and successful interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists, care providers and educators in long-term care, and its replication in the United Kingdom. This Living Lab was established in 1998 by Maastricht University, and covers 185 long-term care facilities, including about 50,000 clients and more than 27,000 staff. Key working mechanisms are the Linking Pins and interdisciplinary partnership using a team science approach, with great scientific and societal impact. In the workshop the business model of the Living Lab will be presented, and challenges in getting the model operational and sustainable will be discussed. Strategies will be discussed with attendees for establishing a structural collaboration between a university and long-term care organization(s) in their region, state or country.

“Creating Accessible Interfaces for Older Adults: An HCI Approach” is a hands-on workshop that introduces designers, developers, and other professionals with the tools they need to create web interfaces that are more accessible and usable for older adults. In this workshop, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by older adults while using the web, learn best practices for designing accessible interfaces, and discover strategies for promoting digital inclusion and accessibility within their organization. Through a combination of interactive activities, group discussions, and short presentations by the organizers, attendees will leave this workshop with an understanding of the tools they need to create more inclusive and accessible digital experiences for all users. Participants will also have increased empathy and understanding of the challenges faced by older adults while using the web.

In this highly educational and thought provoking approach of a new neurology-first clinical framework, learners will develop the critical skills necessary to properly diagnose and treat neurocognitively impaired residents within a rubric that effectively lowers antipsychotic rate usage. After an inter-professional segment demonstrating the framework, learners will break out into small groups to review, discuss and develop the critical steps in the medical decision making process in the person centered care approach of neurocognitively impaired residents. This framework lends itself to the lowering of antipsychotic rates through proper diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative illnesses, rather than the current psychiatric approach.

Interested in learning how to help older adults with dementia to eat better? Clinical guidelines call for careful hand-feeding, but what does this mean and how do we teach caregivers how to do it? Join us for a fun, interactive skills workshop where you will: - Learn about the brain changes that take place with dementia and how they impact eating - Experience the sensory changes that people living with dementia encounter each day - Identify mealtime techniques to assist individuals in the different phases of dementia - Practice hand-feeding techniques to assist individuals who can no longer eat independently.

Start your journey to an Age-Friendly Health System using the tools of implementation and improvement science. Learn how to include the 4Ms (What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility) as essential components for care delivery. Participants will work alongside experts from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and Case Western Reserve University on the path to success. Workshop attendees will actively participate as they “drive their care” using an AFHS Implementation Planning Map that incorporates implementation and improvement science landmarks (1) assessment of the current state, (2) examining the literature, (3) systems assessment, (4) defining aims, (5) measurement and alignment with the electronic health record, (6) implementation strategies, (7) pilot testing. At each landmark, participants will engage in an activity. The destination of success will include a preliminary plan that participants can take back to start their journey of achieving Age-Friendly Health Systems recognition and ultimately Committed to Care Excellence status.

Older adults are at increased risk for suicide, necessitating interventions that effectively promote psychological well-being and reduce psychological distress. This interactive workshop will focus on Meaning-Centered intervention Groups, brief psychological groups that aim to enhance social support and well-being by way of meaning-centered discussions about creativity, life experiences, attitudes towards adversity and success, and the future. Initially designed as an upstream intervention for men facing retirement, we have since adapted these groups for male veterans and first-responders in career transition and for older adults experiencing loneliness, social isolation, and pandemic-related distress. Discussion will focus on challenges faced by older adults potentially vulnerable to the onset or exacerbation of psychological distress in the context of life transitions, approaches to engaging participants in community-based in-person and online psychological interventions, and experiential exercises for those interested in learning more about and potentially delivering meaning-centered groups to promote psychological well-being in their communities.

Microbiome is a new frontier for human medicine and aging biology. This workshop brings together basic, clinical, and community/population science experts who will share their research findings on topics such as – microbiome in gut feelings, precision nutrition, physical function, infectious diseases, behavioral science, genetics, and epidemiology using mechanistic and translational approaches. In addition, this workshop also includes a panel discussion about future perspectives in this area of research and clinical practice. This workshop will serve as a perfect platform to learn new technologies used for microbiome and aging research from plate to people as well as learn the status of the field to be applied in clinical and daily life practices in public health while creating opportunities for new collaborations among researchers.

This workshop provides a hands-on opportunity for authors to learn writing best practices in small groups supported by experienced scholars. Using samples of their own writing, participants will work on improving communication clarity and effectiveness for manuscript writing, revising, and responding to reviewers.

This half-day workshop is designed to introduce the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to the GSA membership with a special focus on cognition data resources. The HRS is a large-scale longitudinal study of the labor force participation and health transitions that individuals undergo toward the end of their work lives and in the years that follow. The survey collects information about income, work, assets, pension plans, health insurance, disability, physical health and functioning, cognitive functioning, psychosocial factors, family structure and transfers, and health care expenditures. The main focus of this workshop will be the HRS cognition data resources including the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol, which link to the full survey data, and how to use them. New data on neurobiomarkers will be presented. Methods for longitudinal modelling of cognition data will be described.

The proposed workshop is designed for new users and those who want to learn more about using the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) and the National Study of Caregiving (NSOC). The workshop will provide an overview of the study design and content of NHATS and NSOC. The workshop will cover study content on disability, dementia, and caregiving as well as linkages to restricted files and Medicare claims data. Presenters will introduce user resources available through the NHATS website including annotated instruments, content documentation, and technical papers. More advanced topics, such as weighting, survey design adjustments, sub-population analysis (e.g., analysis for different race / ethnicity groups), and using metadata will also be covered. An interactive session will answer users’ questions and provide analysis advice.