Spotlight

Spotlight: IPA’S Web Site a Growing Resource for Professionals Around the World

Jay S. Luxenberg, MD

IPA was founded to foster communication internationally among those interested in the psychiatric problems of old age. Although IPA is a fairly young organization, the impact of the Internet could not possibly have been anticipated when IPA was founded. Today the Internet offers a widely, albeit not universally, available method of disseminating information and facilitating communication. For all practical purposes, geographic distances are irrelevant to the use of the Internet to communicate. This tool provides an exciting opportunity to further IPA’s mission: to promote education, provide information and community to physicians in areas where resources may be scarce and there may be few colleagues that share their interest in psychogeriatrics, and increase worldwide understanding of psychogeriatric issues.

Of course, we would like everyone in the world with an interest in psychogeriatrics to attend IPA meetings and subscribe to International Psychogeriatrics, but realistically, financial constraints prevent many interested physicians from participating in IPA activities. Admirably, some members donate funds to subsidize a limited number of memberships for colleagues who otherwise could not join. However, we cannot offer this to all who would like it, nor can we subsidize attendance at our international meetings. The Internet presents an opportunity to offer service to interested parties around the world, without requiring travel to attend a meeting or costly shipment of paper journals.

IPA’s Web site, “Psychogeriatrics: The World of Mental Health and Aging,” (http://www.ipa-online.org), online for more than a year, is steadily growing in content and audience. One concern that initially hindered the development of the IPA Web site was the fear of “cannibalizing” membership and resources to the detriment of the newsletter and the journal. Fortunately, as time has shown, many similar organizations have found a satisfactory balance that allows posting timely and interesting information on the Web site, while retaining sufficient value in the unique content of International Psychogeriatrics and the IPA Bulletin. Very few members dropped their membership because of the availability of free content on the Web site.

IPA currently offers tables of contents and abstracts from the journal, as well as selected articles from the current and archived issues of the newsletter. Additionally, the Web site provides information about upcoming IPA meetings (see the link to the Web site for IPA’s Tenth International Congress in Nice, France) and reports of past meetings. We also provide information on Honors and Awards related to psychogeriatrics, including those sponsored or administered by IPA. A definition and description of psychogeriatrics is offered, and soon we will provide a psychogeriatrics glossary.  

Educational material

Among other diverse and important features found at our Web site are monographs and slide presentations that can be down-loaded and used in educational presentations. For example, with the assistance of generous sponsors, IPA’s Web site offers slides developed to teach diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Many IPA members have found this material useful when they are teaching students, nursing staff or physician groups. While it would be too expensive to mail the slides to interested parties, the slides are posted in Microsoft PowerPoint format, which can be cheaply converted to physical slides, printed as overhead projection transparencies, or used on an LCD projector. This is an example of how the Web site and the Internet can be used to disseminate psychogeriatric knowledge beyond the limits of our current membership.

Similarly, the entire content of the seven-module series of educational monographs on Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD), for specialists, and the latest module, written for primary care providers, are available online in Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat formats for downloading. The Acrobat files allow anyone using the free Acrobat Reader soft-ware to print off a version identical to the professionally printed version. As this series is truly up to date and extremely comprehensive, it is likely to find a much wider audience via the Web than could otherwise be achieved.

The “Cover Story” is another Web site feature intended to excite and challenge those who stumble onto our home page, and to induce our own members to check back frequently. When I think about the sites that I check frequently, I realize they all have content that changes often, either daily or weekly. So far, we have not found a sufficient number of volunteer writers to allow us to change the Cover Story monthly, but the IPA Board is making a major commitment to identify potential contributors.

Limitless possibilities

One of the most exciting potential uses for the Web site is the generation of running conversations among members. The Internet allows a rapid enough response so that such forums will allow clinicians and researchers from all around the world to ask questions, get feedback for innovative programs, and even make friends. Clearly such forums require a critical mass of participants. It is hoped that all members will get in the habit of checking the IPA Web forums frequently (initially the volume of postings will most likely support checking these pages on a weekly basis).

We anticipate subdividing forums as the volume of communication increases, so that eventually there can be individual forums addressing depression, dementias, long term care issues, chronic schizophrenia, etc. We feel comfortable that there are plenty of good ideas and important questions that just do not end up being submitted as formal articles in professional journals. This will be yet another avenue to communicate with peers, and the response rate will be faster than any journal can offer.

We also plan to invite authors of IPA journal articles to submit a short paragraph putting their new work in the context of the broader field, so that the Web site might induce readers to explore the full content of the journal article. In addition, we have identified volunteers willing to post abstracts of articles from the recent world literature that we anticipate will be of interest to psychogeriatricians.

Ultimately, we want members and others using the Web site to feel part of a worldwide community, and hope to facilitate this by providing information cross-linking with similar organizations, as well as offering links to Web sites that are of potential interest to members. It is hoped that participants in our forums can comment on the applicability of research results presented in International Psychogeriatrics and other journals, in the context of their working environment. Cross-cultural applicability is rarely studied when new psychogeriatric instruments or treatment techniques are presented. IPA has a unique opportunity to utilize the Web site and Web community to initiate dialogues on these cultural issues.

IPA is still very much a developing organization. As such, it is important to use the Web site to increase our visibility among people interested in psychogeriatric issues within their own countries, yet who may be unaware of the benefits of extending that to an international platform. Our Web development team has provided an attractive and functional site. It is an ongoing challenge to keep the content fresh and interesting, to entice people who chance upon the site to learn about IPA and, potentially, to join or attend a meeting.

In this article, I have purposely not listed the URLs (Universal Resource Locators) to locate the specific features mentioned. Instead, I encourage you to point your Web browser to our Web site (http://www.ipa-online.org) and explore this frequently changing resource. You will find many more features than can be mentioned here. In the future we anticipate offering some features that will available for members only, but for the time being the entire site is open to all. Help us reach our goal of developing a Web site that will make our members proud and provide a useful resource to the greater community of those interested in psychogeriatrics.

Jay S. Luxenberg, MD, an internist and geriatrician, is an Associate Clinical Professor, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. He is the Director of Medical Services at the Jewish Home, San Francisco, and is Medical Director at two residential facilities for the elderly. Dr. Luxenberg is the Content Editor of IPA’s Web site and editor of the newsletter of the California Association of Medical Directors. He has published three books and many research articles on topics related to aging.