IPA Press Releases

IPA Names New Officers

Northfield, IL USA, (12 September 2005) – The Board of Directors of the International Psychogeriatric Association appointed the following slate of officers, who will assume their new positions immediately following the IPA 12th Congress in September of 2005.

President, Joel Sadavoy, MD FRCP(C), Canada
Joel Sadavoy is professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, psychiatrist-in-chief and head of the geriatric psychiatry program at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, and inaugural chair holder of the Sam and Judy Pencer and Family Chair in Applied General Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto. He has been active in geriatric psychiatry nationally and internationally as the founding president of the Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry, a member of the board of directors of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, a consultant to the Council on Aging of the American Psychiatric Association, and a member of the IPA Board of Directors. In Toronto, he was a founding member of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and was its head from 1991 to 1993. He founded the academic department of geriatric psychiatry at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care and was head of that department from 1979 to 1991. He has also headed the division of general psychiatry at the University of Toronto and the NeuroGeriatric program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

In 1999, Dr. Sadavoy chaired IPA’s Ninth International Congress in Vancouver, where he was a recipient of a 1999 IPA Field and Service Award.

President-Elect, Helen Fung-kum Chiu, MB BS, FRCPsych, FHKAM (Psychiatry), FHKCPsych, Hong Kong, SAR PR China
Dr. Helen Fung-kum Chiu is Professor of Psychiatry and Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She has served on IPA’s Board of Directors since 1998, and currently serves as Secretary of IPA.

Dr. Chiu is currently President of the Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists, Immediate Past President of the Hong Kong College of Psychiatrists, as well as Vice President of the Hong Kong Psychogeriatric Association. Professor Chiu sits on the Editorial Board of a number of journals. She is also Head of The Psychogeriatric Unit and the Director of the Dementia Research Unit at Department of Psychiatry of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

In 2002, Dr. Chiu chaired the IPA Asia Pacific Regional Meeting held in Hong Kong.

Secretary, Masatoshi Takeda MD, PhD, Japan
Masatoshi Takeda has been Chairman Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine since April 1996. He graduated from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire (United States) in 1972, Osaka University Medical School (Japan) with an MD in 1979 and Graduate School of Osaka University with a PhD in 1983.

Professor Takeda started his research career with the work on functional impairment of cytoskeletal proteins in dementia brain. He spent two years as a post doc in University of Florida (USA), and Baylor College of Medicine (USA) during 1985-1987 and then continued neurochemistry and molecular biology of cytoskeletal proteins in Department of Neuropsychiatry, Osaka University Medical School, which has been one of the leading centers of psychogeriatrics in Japan. His team is now working on the mechanism of neurodegeneration in aged and dementia brains. His department also carries on clinical research projects, searching for biological markers for degenerative dementia, functional neuroimaging of dementia, neuropsychology, psychophysiology, psychopathology, and drug development in psychogeriatrics. 

Professor Takeda, as an active member of the Board of Directors of IPA since 1998, is keen to stimulate research and personal exchanges between developing countries and Japan.

Treasurer, Philippe H. Robert, MD, PhD, France
Philippe H. Robert completed his medical studies at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in 1981 and received a PhD in Life Sciences in 1996 from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris. A native of Nice, he is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and Director of the Memory Center, Nice University Hospital. Presently he is the director of the Nice CMRR (Memory Center for Care and Research) which is one of the 19 official French Memory centers merging competency coming from geriatrics, neurology and psychiatry. Professor Robert teaches psychological medicine and psychiatry and psychogeriatrics for the geriatric specialization degree, and also is Director of the Masters program in psychobiology of behavior.

In addition to IPA’s Board of Directors, to which he was elected in 2000, Professor Robert is president elect of the French Society of Biological Psychiatry and an Executive Board member of the French Society of Psychogeriatrics, and of the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum (CINP). He also is a member of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacologicum (ECNP), the International Society of Neuropsychology, and the Society for Neuroscience. 
Professor Robert organized a course in research in psychogeriatrics for IPA’s Vancouver Congress and was the Chair of the 2001 Tenth Congress in Nice.

Treasurer-Elect, Jacobo Mintzer, MD, United States
Jacobo E. Mintzer, MD, is a Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, Physiology and Neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, South Carolina. He is Chief of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and Fellowship programs at MUSC, and Co-Director of Alzheimer’s Research & Clinical Programs. Dr. Mintzer is the Director, Institute of Research Minority Training on Mental Health & Aging (IRMMA) and Associate Director for Alzheimer’s Research, Neuroscience Institute at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Mintzer is a distinguished fellow with the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Mintzer is former treasurer and board member for the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP). He is former member of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Council on Aging and Co-Chair of the Scientific Committee for the 2003 meeting of the International Psychogeriatric Association (IPA). Additionally, he is the former Chair of the APA Committee on Ethnic Minority Elderly Committee. Dr. Mintzer’s clinical interests are concentrated on geriatric psychiatry and medicine, Alzheimer’s disease and psychopharmacology of Alzheimer’s disease, behavioral management of agitated demented patients, memory disorders, and mental health in the elderly as a function of ethnicity.

In 2003, Dr. Mintzer co-chaired the IPA Eleventh Congress held in Chicago.

Immediate Past, George T. Grossberg, MD, United States
George Grossberg is the Samuel W. Fordyce professor and director of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry of Saint Louis University School of Medicine. He is a former president of the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry and has been a leader in developing mental health programs, treatment, and research in geriatrics. He currently serves as assistant editor of the American Journal of Psychiatric Psychiatry and the International Journal of Geriatric Psychopharmacology.

He is the founder of the Saint Louis University/Alzheimer’s Association Brain Bank, and is involved in a variety of basic, as well as clinical, research projects in the area of dementing disorders, with a focus on behavioral disturbances in dementia. He also has served as a consultant on nursing homes to the US Justice Department, Civil Rights Division. Recently he chaired the development of clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of depression in the nursing home for the American Medical Directors Association.

The International Psychogeriatric Association (IPA) is recognized as the world’s leading multidisciplinary, not-for-profit organization providing healthcare professionals and scientists with current information about behavioral and biological geriatric mental health. IPA works actively to promote research in the field, and to facilitate international consensus and understanding in psychogeriatric issues.

For more information about IPA and its many programs and services, please contact Susan M. Oster, Executive Director of IPA at soster@ipa-online.org or +1.847.501.3310. Bookmark the IPA Website at www.ipa-online.org!