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Speakers
Our exciting and insightful range of international and local
speakers will be posted as they are confirmed.
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Dr. Nancy A. Pachana
Dr. Nancy A. Pachana is an Associate Professor in the School of
Psychology at the University of Queensland. A clinical psychologist
and clinical neuropsychologist, she has published over 75
peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the field of ageing.
Her main research interests include early assessment of dementia
syndromes, assessing for driving safety, competency evaluations and
assessment, novel interventions in residential aged care
environments and treatment of anxiety disorders in later life. Her
main teaching initiatives involve expanding multidisciplinary
training in working with geriatric populations. Nancy is the
National Convener of the Australian Psychological Society’s
Psychology and Ageing Interest Group and is a Fellow of the
Society. She is on the Board of Directors of the International
Psychogeriatrics Association. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical
Psychology from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio,
in 1992. She received specialist training in neuropsychological
assessment and clinical treatment of older adults during three
years of post-doctoral clinical training at the University of
California at Los Angeles – Neuropsychiatric Institute and at the
Palo Alto Veterans Hospital Systetam.
Keynote
Anxiety in Later Life
Anxiety disorders are more common in later life than depressive
disorders, but until recently such disorders were neglected in the
clinical research literature. Yet anxiety disorders can have a
profound and negative impact on quality of life in both community
and residential care settings. Accurate assessment of such
disorders is an important issue, as anxiety later in life can be
difficult to distinguish from a variety of medical and neurological
disorders, yet clinical inventories measuring anxiety symptoms in
this population have been lacking. Nancy Pachana has developed the
Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI), a brief measure of dimensional
anxiety specifically designed for use in older adults, with
excellent psychometric properties. Treatment of anxiety disorders
for older is a growing focus in the empirical literature, and
outcome data as well as suggestions for future research will be
discussed.
Workshop
Residential Aged Care: A positive focus on interventions and
workforce issues
There is much discussion in the literature about a person-centred
approach in long-term care settings, but the field of positive
psychology also has much to contribute. In this session the basic
principles of positive psychology, namely working from a
strengths-based approach, will be discussed. The techniques
discussed have applicability both to formal and informal (family)
carers. New instruments to measure positive aspects of caregiving
will be covered. Basic exercises involving such techniques as
gratitude journaling will be discussed. Ways to improve engagement
for existing care workers, plus strategies to increase interest in
this area in new graduates and potential staff from other areas,
will be provided.
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Professor Billie Giles-Corti
Director, Centre for the Built Environment and Health,
School of Population Health
The University of Western Australia
Professor Billie Giles-Corti is Director of the Centre for the
Built Environment and Health at the School of Population Health,
The University of Western Australia and an NHMRC Senior Research
Fellow. For more than a decade, she and a multi-disciplinary
team of researchers and post-graduate research students at UWA have
been studying the impact of the built environment on health, social
and health behavior outcomes including walking, cycling, public
transport use, overweight and obesity, social capital and dog
walking. A leading health promotion researcher in Australia
and recognized internationally for her research on the built form,
Professor Giles-Corti serves on numerous international, national
and state committees and boards. In 2007, she was awarded a
Fulbright Senior Scholar Award that enabled her spend four months
at Stanford University, USA focused on establishing research on the
built environment and older adults.
Abstract
Creating supportive environments
so that older people can support themselves
There is widespread agreement that many health problems of older
life - including the onset of frailty and disability - can be
postponed or delayed by adopting health-enhancing habits such as
physical activity. Physical activity decreases the risk of
major diseases (including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and
depression), yet the majority of Australians do insufficient
physical activity to benefit their health, and physical activity
declines with age. Older people are less likely than others to be
confident that they can be more physically active citing poor
health and being ‘too old’ as major barriers. Yet if older adults
could be encouraged to be more active as they age, this would
assist in maintaining physical function and mobility, thereby
reducing frailty and disability associated with falls and enhancing
physical and mental health. Efforts to increase physical activity
in older adults may be jeopardized if there is insufficient access
to neighbourhood environments that provides opportunities to walk
and to participate in other forms of physical activity. In
fact, it has been suggested that the neighbourhood environment is
perhaps more important for older adults than any other population
group, because without mobility, older people become ‘prisoners of
space’. The question is: how can we build environments
that are supportive of older people being more active? The
evidence suggests a range of factors appear to be important
including the presence, quality and maintenance of footpaths;
access to places to walk to (including parks and local shops); safe
traffic crossings and programs designed for an ageing
population. Is it possible to build neighbourhoods that
maximize surveillance, reduce crime and increase perceptions of
safety to support an ageing population? This talk will
consider the literature on environmental factors that facilitate
older adults being active and factors that need to be considered in
building housing for an ageing population that will maximize
mobility and independence, so that older people are not ‘prisoners
of space, but rather can support themselves as thves as they
age.
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Professor Alan
Walker - NZiRA Visitor
(BA, DLitt, Hon. D.Soc.Sc. (HKBU), FRSA, AcSS)
Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology
Director of the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme
Dr Alan Walker joined the University of Sheffield in 1977. He
directed the �3.5 million ESRC Growing Older Programme, 1999-2004,
and the UK National Collaboration on Ageing Research, 2001-2004. He
is currently Director of the �20 million ESRC, EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC
and AHRC New Dynamics of Ageing Programme and is also Director of
the European Research Area in Ageing and is spending most of his
time on research. His research interests span a wide range in
social analysis, social policy and social planning. He Chairs the
European Foundation on Social Quality, which is based in Amsterdam.
He currently directs the New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme
funded by five UK Research Councils. He has published more than 20
books, over 200 reports and more than 300 papers in scholarly
journals and edited volumes; his work has been published in more
than 20 languages. He is a founding Academician of the Academy for
Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. He has been active in the
UK voluntary sector for many years and co-founded the Disability
Alliance in 1974, and is currently Patron of the National
Pensioner's Conventiononv
Abstract
Active Ageing: Its Promise and Potential
This
lecture considers the leading global policy strategy being employed in
response to unprecedented demographic change: ‘active ageing’. It
argues that this strategy, in practice, is too narrowly focussed on
extending working lives. Following a brief caution about the dangers of
over-emphasising the negative consequences of population ageing the
genesis of active ageing is reviewed. Then the main part of the lecture
is devoted to setting out a new approach to active ageing which
emphasises life long health and well-being. Finally there is an outline
of the key policy and practice changes necessary to realise the full
potential of this conce |
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