Challenging widespread clinical practice and accepted treatment guidelines, Dr. Holly Prigerson has published a paper in JAMA Oncology that puts the value of chemotherapy for end-of-life patients with cancer into question. Among several findings, it was found that patients who were ambulatory (able to do light work) and receiving chemotherapy at study entry, had significantly lower quality of life at the end of their lives compared to those who were not receiving chemotherapy.
Dr. Janey Peterson was recently awarded the prestigious Paul B. Beeson Career Development Award in Aging Research from the National Institute on Aging and the American Federation for Aging. The award is a four-year grant in the amount of $720,596 and will further the development of a physical activity intervention for older adults with multiple high-risk chronic diseases.
On October 11, 2012, Dr. Mark Lachs testified in Washington, D.C., providing recommendations to the Elder Justice Coordinating Council on HIPAA and IRB issues related to the investigation of elder abuse. He described the challenges faced by elder abuse researchers under HIPAA and IRB guidelines.
Is there something that older people know that the young don't about how to live? To answer that question, Karl Pillemer, Professor of Gerontology in Medicine and the Hazel E. Reed Human Ecology Professor at Cornell-Ithaca created the Legacy Project, in which he surveyed more than 1,200 of the oldest Americans to seek their advice for living better, happier lives.
Dr. Mark S. Lachs is part of an expert panel convened by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging to testify on nationwide trends of elder abuse. The hearing, Justice for All: Ending Elder Abuse, Neglect and Financial Exploitation, will take place today in Washington, DC, and will include personal testimony from actor and abuse survivor Mickey Rooney.
As the aging population of the United States continues to grow, patients and caregivers are coming face-to-face with a widespread but largely overlooked problem. Medical ageism often results in a patient's ailments going untreated or being overtreated. Because their symptoms are dismissed as "just part of getting older," such discrimination of the elderly extends throughout the healthcare system, disproportionately affecting the quality of life for elderly patients.
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has awarded Weill Cornell Medical College a $2 million grant to fund an Edward R. Roybal Center for Research on Applied Gerontology, one of 12 such centers nationally. The grant will create the Cornell-Columbia Translational Research Institute on Pain in Later Life (TRIPLL), a collaboration focused on implementing innovative strategies for improving pain management among older adults.
The Department of Medicine is saddened to announce that Desiree Pardi, M.D., Ph.D., died peacefully on Sunday, September 6, 2009.
The Department of Medicine is proud to announce that Dr. Mark Lachs will serve as Executive Director of the new Elder Abuse Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The goal of the center is to improve intervention and treatment for elder abuse cases in the New York City area.
