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Academic
Centres:Edinburgh
University
of Edinburgh
Geriatric
Medicine Unit,
Clinical and Surgical Sciences,
University of Edinburgh
Website: www.geriatric.med.ed.ac.uk |
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Aims
To
improve the health of elderly people by original research, by the
dissemination of knowledge, and as an exemplar of excellent clinical
practice.
Teaching
Final year medical undergraduates are attached to Geriatric Medicine
for four week periods, which include three days of lectures
and one day of examinations and case report presentations.
Specialist Registrars are active in formal and informal teaching.
Staff are also involved in leading Special Study Modules in
Year 4, and in lecturing and examining in biomedical honours
courses, such as Neuroscience and Pharmacology.
Research
Geriatric Medicine is within the RAE 2001 unit of assessment ‘Hospital
Based Clinical Subjects’, for which Edinburgh was graded
5*. The three main areas of research in Geriatric Medicine are
locomotor function, stroke, delirium and cognitive ageing. Current
locomotor and stroke research includes projects on muscle structure
and function with ageing, exercise training post-stroke, and neuroimaging
correlates of stroke outcome. There are large scale studies of
the pathophysiology of delirium in progress. The cognitive ageing
research programme is focused on the determinants of change in
'normal' cognitive ageing as well as the dementias. There are also
projects on the assessment of older adults with learning disability.
Our research involves multiple methodologies, including clinical
assessments, exercise testing, molecular genetics, epidemiology,
and neuroimaging. Most projects involve collaborations with other
university units and departments, including orthopaedics, neuroradiology,
clinical neurosciences, stroke medicine, psychology, genetics,
endocrinology and public health. There is therefore a wide range
of possibilities in the types of projects available. We welcome
enquiries from SHOs or SpRs interested in doing research. Informal
enquiries can be directed to Professor Archie Young (locomotor),
Dr. Gillian Mead (stroke), Dr. John Starr (cognitive ageing, and
health status in learning disability), or Dr. Alasdair MacLullich
(delirium, cognitive ageing).
The unit has close links with the Stroke Medicine subdivision of
the Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Trainees with a particular
interest in stroke research and training may also wish to contact
the head of this unit, Professor Martin Dennis.
Sample
publications
Mead GE, Wardlaw JM, Lewis SC, Dennis MS. No evidence that severity
of stroke in internal carotid occlusion is related to collateral
arteries. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2006 Feb 17; [Epub ahead
of print]
MacLullich AMJ, Ferguson KJ, Wardlaw JM, Starr JM, Deary IJ, Seckl
JR. Smaller left anterior cingulate cortex volumes are associated
with impaired hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis regulation in
healthy elderly men. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006 Feb 7; [Epub
ahead of print]
Starr JM, Loeffler B, Abousleiman Y, Simonotto E, Marshall I,
Goddard N, Wardlaw JM. Episodic and semantic memory tasks activate
different brain regions in Alzheimer disease. Neurology. 2005 Jul
26;65(2):266-9.
Shenkin SD, Bastin ME, Macgillivray TJ, Deary IJ, Starr JM, Rivers
CS, Wardlaw JM. Cognitive correlates of cerebral white matter lesions
and water diffusion tensor parameters in community-dwelling older
people. Cerebrovasc Dis. 2005;20(5):310-8.
Fitzsimons CF, Greig CA, Saunders DH, Lewis SH, Shenkin SD, Lavery
C, Young A. Responses to walking-speed instructions: implications
for health promotion for older adults. J Aging Phys Act. 2005 Apr;13(2):172-83.
Mead GE, Elder AT, Flapan AD, Kelman A. Electrical cardioversion
for atrial fibrillation and flutter. Cochrane Database Syst Rev.
2005 Jul 20;(3):CD002903.
Morley W, Jackson K, Mead GE. Post-stroke fatigue: an important
yet neglected symptom. Age Ageing. 2005 May;34(3):313.
MacLullich AMJ, Deary IJ, Starr JM, Ferguson KJ, Wardlaw JM, Seckl
JR. Plasma cortisol levels, brain volumes and cognition in healthy
elderly men. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2005 Jun;30(5):505-15.
Saunders DH, Greig CA, Young A, Mead GE. Physical fitness training
for stroke patients. Stroke. 2004 Sep;35(9):2235.
McGurn B, Starr JM, Topfer JA, Pattie A, Whiteman MC, Lemmon HA,
Whalley LJ, Deary IJ. Pronunciation of irregular words is preserved
in dementia, validating premorbid IQ estimation. Neurology. 2004
Apr 13;62(7):1184-6.
Shenkin SD, Bastin ME, MacGillivray TJ, Deary IJ, Starr JM, Wardlaw
JM. Childhood and current cognitive function in healthy 80-year-olds:
a DT-MRI study. Neuroreport. 2003 Mar 3;14(3):345-9.
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