IPA Bulletin
President's Message

By Joel Sadavoy

Dear Colleagues...

In my first column in the November 2005 Bulletin I outlined the key elements in IPA’s Agenda for Innovation. I would like to give you an interim report on how we are doing. IPA has successfully launched the Learning Portal that I introduced in my last column. You’ll recall that through the innovation of technology and via the Learning Portal… IPA Comes To You.

This presents a wonderful educational opportunity for our members. One of the ways we will do this is through online courses. And best of all, our first online course is free! If you go to the website at www. ipa-online.org you will find the first phase of our IPA Knowledge Bank taking shape. To access it simply go to the IPA website home page at www.ipa-online.org and click on the new Learning Portal logo. Here you will find easy instructions that will give you access to our first selection of IPA Learning Portal products. For example you can now access the outstanding seminar on state of the art use and interpretation of neuroimaging video together with text and slide presentations, “Neuroimaging in Old Age Psychiatry.”

In addition to the web version, we have packaged this as a DVD version. Some of you may have received a copy at the Stockholm Congress. We are indebted to Jay Luxemburg for his leadership in stewarding this new IPA component to completion and of course to Susan Oster and her team.

If you look further you will find that we have put the whole abstract book of the IPA 2005 Stockholm Congress on the Learning Portal for you. You may want to look especially for the abstract titles that are circled in blue. The blue indicates that you can access the slides for these presentations which the presenters have graciously allowed IPA to place on the web. For example if you want to know more about MCI go to Symposium 1 and look at the presentation of the multinational DESCRIPA study of MCI, for dementia in developing countries try Symposium 2 or for Psychotherapy symposium 23.

But in your excitement don’t neglect other parts of area. To get to it from the home page click on the “welcome members” section. Put in your surname where indicated and enter your password. If you forget it (your password, not your name — if you forget your name it’s a different problem) don’t worry, Jodi Metzgar at the Secretariat will get it for you quickly if you email the IPA office at ipa@ipa-online.org. As members we can also gain access to the opinions of our colleagues around the world by starting a “forum” in the Learning Portal. Instructions are on the website. A forum is an online discussion group to which any member can add an opinion. The first one was started by Thea Heeren and Bob Baldwin to discuss bipolar disease in old age. This subject will be the focus of an upcoming consensus conference. Feel free to start your own group

The Live Broadcast initiative of IPA’s Learning Portal with its mission, IPA Comes to You, presented its first conference on 30 March on Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD), beamed from the central site in Toronto to four receiving sites in Argentina, Brazil, Ireland, and Romania. An article describing the program and how the program went appears on page 5.

Our meeting agenda, overseen by the chair of the meetings committee João Machado, is similarly taking shape. The European Regional Congress chaired by Horatio Firmino took place May 3–6 in Lisbon, Portugal. The theme was “Bridges across Aging: Meeting Primary Care Needs Through Specialization,” and is important as it addresses the translation of the complex science of psychogeriatrics into the equally complex primary clinical care of elders and their families. Highlights of the meeting are on page 7.

In 2007, IPA will celebrate its 25th anniversary about which I will tell you more as we get closer to the time. Our next congress in Osaka Japan in the fall of 2007 will be the centerpiece of our celebrations. For this reason we have agreed with Masatoshi Takeda the congress chair to call this meeting the IPA 2007 Osaka Silver Congress. IPA is once again grateful to Sandy Finkel who selflessly donated his time and resources in joining Professor Takeda as IPA’s emissary in February 2006 in Japan to promote the congress. He conducted a whirlwind multi-city speaking tour, meeting with potential delegates and sponsors, to lay a strong foundation of support for this important international gathering.

While not an official IPA meeting, our organization supported the first Psychogeriatric conference 15–16 December 2005, in Iran. This meeting was entitled “Alzheimer’s Disease in Iran” and was brought to fruition under the leadership of Dr. Maryam Noroozian of Teheran University of Medical Sciences. The structure that we developed in the fall to address IPA’s need for enhanced resources has been functioning well and is beginning to bear fruit. In particular the members of the Corporate Strategy task force chaired by Jill Rasmussen and the International Research and Education Initiative task force chaired by George Grossberg have been very active seeking out and meeting with potential sponsors. Special thanks are due to Jacobo Mintzer who has been particularly active and effective in conceptualizing and promoting these initiatives. We have created a new line of products to market to sponsors that build on and enhance IPA’s mission while meeting the needs many sponsors have for global perspectives and knowledge. In a future column I will describe some of these initiatives in more detail. In the meantime it is important to reemphasize that strengthening IPA financially remains a top priority. Only with a strong infrastructure can IPA achieve its ambitious mission for Better Mental Health for Older People around the world.

I welcome your participation and comments. Please write to me at j.sadavoy@utoronto.ca if you want to make contact about any aspect of IPA.

Reprinted from IPA Bulletin, Volume 23, Number 2