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May 2019

Dean Laura Mosqueda: Addressing elder abuse in the U.S.

By Elder Abuse, Lifespan Health, Podcast

Dr. Laura Mosqueda, Dean and Professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, is raising awareness about the issue of elder abuse and shaping how it is addressed in medical schools, clinics and the national conversation.

 Quotes from this episode

“Whenever an older adult comes into an emergency room or a primary care office with some sort of injury or wound, we almost always can find a reason other than abuse or neglect that it happens. So, we don’t want to overcall it and over-accuse people, but we need to be aware that it’s a possibility.”

“Well, I think one of the important things as a primary care physician is that we do take a holistic approach to things, so that sometimes I joke around with my patients and I say, well, your cardiologist’s job is to pay attention to your heart, and my job is to make sure that we remember the heart is attached to the rest of you, and how are we going to take care of your heart in the context of you. And then, even as importantly, in the context of your family and your social situation.”

“There’s remarkable work being done to help caregivers and this idea of caregiver stress, it’s so important for caregivers who are under stress to recognize that within themselves, to not feel embarrassed or ashamed, and to reach out and accept help, which is very hard for a lot of us to do.”

“One of my big jokes is nobody has ever thanked me for preventing their fall. If you go into oncology, it’s a very heroic sort of specialty, and cardio thoracic surgery is very heroic. Geriatrics is not what you think of when you think of a heroic specialty. So it just doesn’t have the same kind of oomph and excitement that other specialties do. But once you get in there, and you do some house calls, and you meet people who are 90 or 100 years old and hear their stories. For me, that’s very inspiring.”

Learn more about Dean Mosqueda and her work at keck.usc.edu/faculty-search/laura-mosqueda/

Age Old Story (The Point magazine)

By In the News

The Point quoted Distinguished Scholar in Residence Paul Irving in an article on the benefits of an intergenerational workforce. “Senior executives need to recognise the potential in their ageing workforce, challenge the assumption that older workers are less productive and refrain from putting only younger workers on new initiatives,” Irving said. “Failure to do so will make the perceived drag from an ageing population a self-fulfilling prophesy.”

The Evidence Is Strong: Air Pollution Seems To Cause Dementia (Wired)

By In the News

Wired highlighted research by Caleb Finch of the USC Leonard Davis School about the connection between exposure to air pollution and dementia symptoms. “I have no hesitation whatsoever to say that air pollution causes dementia,” said Finch, who also stated air pollution is just as bad cigarette smoke in terms of its impact on human health and welfare. According to Finch’s research, air pollution can lead to systemic inflammation in the body, which can lead to the formation of Alzheimer’s disease plaques in the brain (second story here).

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