IPA Bulletin
Editor's Note 

By David G. Folks

IPA Continues Strong Advocacy with a Scientific Focus

This issue of IPA Bulletin returns to a theme of dementia care and research. Around the World, Recent Advances by Robert Barber and Robert Baldwin, and On the Web by Brian Draper are all quite focused on dementia-related issues. President Helen Fung-kum Chiu has nicely described IPA’s global efforts to shape public policy and promote advocacy for our patients and their families. The most recent efforts have been in Latin America. Incidentally, this is where we will hold the 2009 International Meeting from 4 - 7 May in lovely Rio de Janerio, Brazil in collaboration with Associação Brasileira de Neuropsiquiatria Geriátrica. This meeting will naturally be of great interest to our members with ample opportunity to visit yet another fantastic international city.

The scientific knowledge regarding Alzheimer’s disease continues to expand as presented at this year’s International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (ICAD) held in Chicago. ICAD clearly provided a wealth of new discoveries and advances in our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. Professor Guk-Hee Suh provides a concise report in this issue of the Bulletin for those who could not attend the 2008 ICAD meeting. Professor John Snowdon offers additional information and commentary as to the venue and content of the ICAD meeting, and reminds us that psychogeriatric practice and scholarship involves much more than the dementias.

As for the IPA Bulletin, I urge all members of IPA to send us your news items, articles or commentaries that will provide an “international perspective” on the field of geriatric psychiatry and aging. As you read through this issue, you will note the submissions from Russia and the United Kingdom. These are excellent pieces that provide a window into the lives of our colleagues in different regions of the world. I’m fascinated to receive the research reports, news items and other miscellaneous submissions from our colleagues. We truly have a diverse group of clinicians, educators, researchers and leaders in the field.

IPA Bulletin Deputy Editor, Ajit Shah, and I are contacting assistant editors in order to request submissions, in the hope that we will continue to receive a variety of informative and enjoyable submissions. Additionally, Ajit will lead a new initiative to solicit correspondence, commenting on recent IPA Bulletin articles or “hot button items.” The idea here is to receive your correspondence that may, and hopefully can, provide strong opinion or comment. We welcome everyone’s perspective and can usually place any submission into publication in a relatively short time frame. Please share your thoughts with us. Tell us what you think!
 

Reprinted from IPA Bulletin, Volume 25, Number 3