Internships are an essential component of gerontological education. Harvesting the learning from internships, however, requires careful attention to assessing an intern's work. In addition to providing feedback to students, internship assessment can also yield data useful for academic program evaluation. Drawing on internship assessment data…

Computer-based virtual patients (VPs) are an emerging medium for medical education that addresses barriers faced by geriatrics educators. Research has shown VPs to be as effective in changing knowledge and behavior as more traditional forms of teaching. This paper presents a descriptive study of the development of the University of Iowa's…

Purpose: The Gentle Persuasive Approaches (GPA) curriculum was developed as an adjunct to other educational initiatives that were part of Ontario, Canada's Alzheimer Strategy. GPA emphasizes that an individual's unique personal history has a direct application to the interpretation of and response to their behavior. It incorporates strategies into…

Purpose: We describe and evaluate a project designed to pilot test an evidence-based clinical intervention for assessing and treating depression in older adults in rural primary care clinics. Project ADAPT--Assuring Depression Assessment and Proactive Treatment--utilized existing primary care resources to overcome barriers to sustainability…

This study reports on the evaluation of a skills-enhancement training series for direct service providers in home care that was part of a federally funded state-level initiative to improve employee recruitment and retention. The gerontological training curriculum included content to improve problem-solving, communication, and stress management…

A training curriculum on mental health and aging was developed and disseminated to 32 natural caregivers throughout a frontier state using a train-the-trainer model. Those certified as trainers included social workers, religious professionals, volunteers, long-term care employees, nurses, home health workers, and professional and informal…

The methodology and design implemented for the Continuing Education/Community Service Projects of the Gerontology Center at Pennsylvania State University was the first attempt to train a diverse body of service providers in aging. Identification of the population for training was a matter of exclusion rather than inclusion, with the direct service…

After arguing that treatment programs for the elderly need to be evaluated with better research designs, the authors illustrate how interrupted time series analysis can be used to evaluate programs for the elderly when random assignment to experimental and control groups is not possible. (Author)

Based on the researcher's observations during a month-long visit to the Soviet Union as a specialist in gerontology and guest of the Soviet Ministry of Health, comparisons were drawn between educational intervention procedures in gerontology and/or geriatrics for health care professionals in the Soviet Union and the United States. Locus of such…

Applied gerontological research of home care service to aged people associates the provision of the service with maintenance of independence, relief of collateral stress, prevention of unnecessary institutionalization and higher contentment. Although these beneficial effects are related to home care, the service is generally regarded as ancillary…

Evaluated the effectiveness of a health education group for older adults (N=20) conducted by social work students. Results showed insignificant findings: neither level of essential knowledge or mental health status improved. However, subjects already had high levels of health knowledge. (JAC)

Three postgraduate continuing education programs utilized self-paced reference materials coupled with symposium presentations. Programs 1 and 2 were designed to provide more "active" learning elements (role plays, simulations, etc.) and Program 3 consisted primarily of lecture and discussion. "Active" format participants were…

A required eight-week rotation in ambulatory medicine at three clinics that included house calls by medical students is described. The students' evaluation of the curriculum provided information on the effectiveness to teaching strategies and the success of transmitting knowledge about the homebound elderly. (Author/MLW)

Based on a naturalistic study of an intergenerational art program at a colocated child and long-term care facility, the purpose of this article is to discuss the implications of the program's learning opportunities, primarily for young children, in light of current conceptualizations of childhood, aging and disability. Through a critical,…