I
am pleased for the opportunity to update you on IPA activities over the past few months.
As this letter goes to press, many of us are making plans to attend our upcoming IPA Latin
American Regional Meeting in Santiago, 26-29 May.
In cooperation with Facultad de Medicina – Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, IPA is planning this
important meeting that has people from 20 countries attending. IPA’s website
(http://www.ipa-online.org) has the
preliminary scientific program, which is excellent, available in both English and Spanish. Visit the
website and register today.
Our sincere thank you to the local organizers Jorge Calderon, Chair, Pedro Paulo Marin, Co-Chair and
Trinidad Hoyle, Scientific Sub-committee Chair, as well as João Carlos Barbosa Machado, chair of the
IPA Meetings Committee, along with Fern Finkel and the staff at the Secretariat. We greatly appreciate their
hard work and efforts toward this meeting. We look forward to a splendid scientific session as well as a very
important Board of Directors meeting. Join IPA in Santiago.
Seoul is the next destination for IPA for the Asia Pacific Regional meeting, 8-11 September 2004 in
cooperation with the Korean Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. We would like to thank Jonghan Park,
Chair, Byeong Kil Yeon, Co-Chair, Byoung Hoon Oh, Scientific Chair and Min Soo Lee, Regional Coordination
Chair for their work on this meeting thus far. Visit the website to view the announcement. Consider
joining IPA in Seoul in September!
On the membership front, we are continuing to pursue electronic memberships as a way to grow and
to make IPA membership affordable to non-physician members and for members from emerging nations.
While speaking “electronically,” our IPA Bulletin
editor, David Folks and the Secretariat have begun to
disseminate electronic versions of this publication to those who asked to receive their
Bulletin electronically.
This has already become quite popular, resulting in convenience for the member and cost savings for
IPA! If you want your IPA Bulletin
electronic access only, drop a note to ipa@ipa-online.org
and we will add you to the growing list!
At the end of October, 2003, IPA convened another very successful expert Consensus Conference:
“Designing Therapeutic Trials for Agitation:
Developing Common Definitions, Tools, and Procedures.” This meeting was a joint effort for IPA and
the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry (AAEP), and brought state-of-the-art information
and discussion on the issues of agitation across the life continuum, with colleagues representing child/adolescence, adult, and the elder communities.
We thank Eric Caine, former Treasurer and Board member of IPA, Glenn Courier, President of
AAEP, and Brian Lawlor, IPA Board Member, for this outstanding project. We greatly appreciate the support of
Janssen-Cilag, Novartis Pharma AG, and Pfizer, Inc., without which this important exchange and sharing
of knowledge between scientists, clinicians, regulators, and pharmaceutical industry representatives could
not have taken place.
For your information, review articles resulting from two of IPA’s previous expert conferences have
been published in The Lancet Neurology: “Cognitive Vascular Impairment,” by John T O’Brien, Timo
Erkinjuntti, Barry Reisberg, Gustavo Roman, Tohru Sawada, Leonardo Pantoni, John V. Bowler, Clive
Ballard, Charles DeCarli, Philip B. Gorelick, Kenneth Rockwood, Alistair Burns, Serge Gauthier, and Steven
T. DeKosky; and “Dementia with Lewy Bodies,” by Ian McKeith, Jacobo Mintzer, Dag
Aarsland, David Burn, Helen Chiu, Jiska Cohen-Mansfield, Dennis Dickson, Bruno Dubois, John E. Duda, Howard
Feldman.
Our journal has now fully transitioned to Cambridge University Press, and our outstanding
editorial team led by David Ames, editor, with John
T. O’Brien, deputy editor, has begun to put their imprimatur on International Psychogeriatrics. Watch
for your issue and the journal–same colors but new look. Your mailing will also contain a letter with
instructions to access International Psychogeriatrics on-line including your journal subscription number
to initiate your access.
Again, on behalf of IPA, I would like to thank Dr. Ursula Springer and Springer Press for pioneering
International Psychogeriatrics and publishing it for the last many years. Dr. Kenneth Shulman and his Strategic Planning
Committee have delivered a draft strategic plan to the
Executive Committee of the IPA Board for review and redrafting. This will ultimately be reviewed and
blessed by the Board of Directors, and then distributed to the IPA membership. The Strategic Plan will be
used to guide the organization for the next several years. All of us owe a debt of gratitude to Ken and
his committee, Alistair Burns, Edmond Chiu, Serge Gauthier, James Lindesay, João Machado, Philippe
Robert, and Joel Sadavoy. We appreciate their excellent work and look to them in the future to monitor IPA’s
adherence to this superb document.
I
am pleased for the opportunity to update you on IPA activities over the past few months.
As this letter goes to press, many of us are making plans to attend our upcoming IPA Latin
American Regional Meeting in Santiago, 26-29 May.
In cooperation with Facultad de Medicina – Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, IPA is planning this
important meeting that has people from 20 countries attending. IPA’s website
(