Further message from Thailand

We held our EASYCareHealth seminar today at the IAGG Asia/Ociania Conference. It was so well attended there was standing room only by the end. This photo was taken at the start time, but many others filtered in! My co-presenters, AB Dey and Du Peng are seated at the front. (Photo 1). I gave the history and rational for our work and summarised some of the work we have been doing in Asia. AB Dey described work in India to translate and validate the EASYCareHealth approach for use in Delhi with a Hindi outpatient population. There is a nice booklet of his Hindi translation. (Photo 2). His early findings are promising. The EASYCareHealth assessment is undertaken by nurses prior to the person being seen by the Doctor. It is a cost effective way to get a holistic perspective, allowing the doctor to concentrate on medical matters. The assessment appears to correlate and compliment gold standard assessments tests of geriatric medical syndromes.Du Peng presented results form the Chinese Longitudinal Studies of Aging. The EASYCareHealth assessment has produced valuable information about care needs, and has shown markedly higher levels of need in rural populations.. It is the assessment of choice for use in community populations. (Photo 3). There was a great discussion, which helped differentiate the empowerment approach in EASYCareHealth from other assessment systems. About 20 people stayed on afterwards to ask about using EASYCareHealth in their countries, including further eminent colleagues in China, Korea, Australia, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. We need to get our new web-site active, as many were searching for it during the talk. I have arranged a follow up meeting next week in Bangkok to develop plans for Thailand.

At the Conference, ther is a stand advertising the next World IAGG Conference which will be held in San Francisco in 2017. About 8,000 people are elected to attend. I spoke to the Director for Asia Relations of the Gerontological Society of America, Jilan Chen (Photo 4), who is involved in organising the Conference. She is keen for us to suggest plans for a seminar, which could be for up to a day to run within the Conference, about global EASYCareHelath. Now is the best time to explore this with the organising Committee. Du Peng and I are working on the plan! I also note that the next IAGG Asia/Ociania conference on Aging will be held in my favourite country, Taiwan in 2019. I am sure we have lots to report there and hope we will meet with the same, kindness, enthusiasm and support for EASYCareHealth work in the region as I have experienced here.

Prof. Ian