GEMCAST

With the upcoming implementation of the new CMS age-friendly hospital measure, hospitals will be required to attest that they review medications to identify potentially inappropriate medications (PIMS) for older adults. Dr. Martin Casey, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UNC School of Medicine. Dr. Caseys’ work has focused on the identifying PIMS and finding opportunities to reduce the use of, and deprescribe, potentially harmful medications in the emergency department.

In this episode, Dr. Christina Shenvi and Dr. Martin Casey will discuss strategies for ED physicians who face unique challenges when assessing older patients’ medications. Using case examples of deprescribing in practice, they illustrate how deprescribing is a nuanced skill and how to approach it.

Dr. Cristina Shenvi is joined today by a panel to explore Geriatric Emergency Medicine (GEM) from a global perspective. As the global population ages, the importance of GEM and its continued development as a subspecialty becomes increasingly evident. This episode will examine the unique challenges that arise as GEM evolves and how different healthcare systems are adapting to meet these challenges. The panel will also discuss innovative practices and solutions that have emerged in their respective countries to advance GEM and improve care for elderly patients.

The expert panel features three distinguished guests: Dr. Mohd Idzwan Zakaria (@prof_idzwan), a senior consultant and professor of Emergency Medicine at University Malaya in Malaysia, specializing in innovative approaches to managing older patients; Dr. Rosa McNamara (@rosaMcNamara), a consultant at St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, and GEM Special Interest Group Chair for the International Federation for Emergency Medicine, with extensive expertise in GEM and medical education; and Dr. Rasha Buhumaid (@Rbuhamaid), an Emergency Physician in Dubai, UAE, President of the Emirates Society for Emergency Medicine, working in both public health and private practice, and an Assistant Professor at Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Resuscitation of older adults in the emergency department poses unique challenges for physicians. Understanding the differences between a typical resuscitation process compared to a resuscitation of an older adult is essential to appropriately manage and treat this population. In this episode Dr. Cliff Reid joins Dr. Christina Shenvi to explore these differences and the associated challenges, and highlight some tools he uses in his own practice. Cliff Reid, MD, is an Emergency, Retrieval, and Critical Care Physician and educator in the greater Sydney area with a focus on resuscitation of adults and children.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) begins developing in the brain 20-30 years before symptoms start to present in patients. Recent evidence suggests that up to 40% of AD cases could potentially be prevented by addressing modifiable risk factors such as insufficient education, hearing loss, hypertension, obesity, smoking, depression, social isolation, physical inactivity, diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption, air pollution, and traumatic brain injury. 

Dr. Christina Shenvi is joined once again by Dr. Richard Isaacson, M.D., a Harvard-trained preventive neurologist and world-renowned researcher at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Florida. In 2013, he founded the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian, the first of its kind in the United States. In this episode of GEMCast they focus on the importance of individualized intervention and prevention as the future of AD treatment.

In 2021 constipation related visits to the ED reached over 1 million.The prevalence of constipation in elderly individuals in the community is between 15-30% and for those living in nursing homes or long-term care facilities it ranges between 50-75%. While constipation itself is not usually life-threatening, it can be indicative of life-threatening diseases or disorders and therefore a comprehensive history and physical assessment of patients is essential to avoid missing a critical diagnosis.

Sarah Lee is an emergency physician at the University of Maryland. In this episode she joins Dr. Christina Shenvi to discuss the presentation, risk factors, assessment and management of constipation in geriatric patients in the ED.

Dr. Christina Shenvi and Dr. Mike Craig discuss the "Home Hospital" model and its potential to transform the way we care for older adults, by bringing hospital-level care to patients' homes.

What ED Physicians need to know about Amyloid Targeting Treatments Part 2 by Christina Shenvi

What ED Physicians need to know about Amyloid Targeting Treatments Part 1 by Christina Shenvi

Join Dr. Christina Shenvi and Dr. Cameron Gettel as they talk about a paper that provides the first benchmarks for emergency care process outcomes in geriatric EDs compared with nongeriatric EDs.

Any transition of care has risks, especially for older patients. In this episode of GEMCast, Dr. Shenvi and Dr. Magidson talk about the importance of thoughtful and deliberate transitions of care for older adults.