Media Release
Mangaluru, Jan 10: The 36th annual conference of Geriatric Society of India (GSI) was recently held at Yenepoya Medical College.
The conference was inaugurated by Dr Mohammed Ismail Hejamady, chairman, Kanachur Health Sciences Advisory Council. Dr A K Singh the president of GSI welcomed the gathering. Dr OP Sharma, secretary GSI, read the annual report. Dr Garima Handa, treasurer of GSI, Dr Vivek Handa, former president of GSI, Dr Sajesh Ashokan, incoming GSI president, Dr Kaushik Ranjan Das, former president was present. Dr M S Moosabba, principal, YMC, formally presented the achievements of YU spanning over 25 years and mentioned that the conference is a part of the silver jubilee celebration of YU. Dr Prabha Adhikari, chairman and HOD of geriatric medicine outlined the scientific programme. Dr Akshay, organizing chairman, and HOD of community medicine, YMC and Dr Kishore Kumar Ubrangala, vice chairman and professor of geriatric medicine were present. Dr Poonam Naik, organizing secretary, professor of community medicine delivered vote of thanks.
A total of 250 delegates, speakers, chairpersons attended the conference which was divided into clinical and preventive geriatric sessions, running concurrently were held on 2 different halls.
104 scientific papers were presented and 15 prizes were awarded. Highlights of the conference were 5 workshops, 5 orations, 4 panel discussions, and practical sessions.
Five workshops were on geriatric emergencies, nursing care of the bedridden elderly, comprehensive geriatric assessment, vertigo evaluation workshop, fall risk assessment and intervention were held.
Interesting clinical case presentations on neurology, cardiology, respiratory, gastrointestinal, rheumatology, hematology cases were discussed by various eminent consultant and geriatric medicine professors. The workshop and sessions were greatly appreciated by all particularly postgraduate students.
Sessions on preventive geriatrics included demonstration of walking variation for fall prevention, yoga for geriatric syndrome, panel discussion on ‘Antiageing therapies’ Long Covid, geriatric vaccinations for elderly, and initiatives of peoples association of geriatric empowerment were appreciated by all.
In Clinical geriatric oration sessions: Cardiac patient undergoing non cardiac surgery, ethos in medicine, Optimising stroke prevention in AF management: Translating the evidence into clinical practice, TB in elderly, Polymyalgia rheumatic, MASH and rural geriatrics – reaching the unreached, the topics.
Eminent guest speakers like Dr Girish Rao from NIMHANS enlightened the audience on community geriatrics. Dr Lingegowda, vice chairman, Siddarath University spoke on End-of-life care. National programme for health care of the older people and its implementation in Karnataka were discussed by Dr Sabah Zubair, programme officer of DK district. Members of Association of Physicians of India (API), Karnataka chapter and API DK chapter participated actively in the 3 days deliberations. API Lahari magazine was released during the conference. Dr Murali Mohan, chairman of API Karnataka and Dr Vishwanath Krishnamoorthy actively participated as panelists in panel discussion.
Two hundred and fifty delegates which included 2 international faculties, 75 delegates across in India and 175 delegates in Karnataka were enriched by additional knowledge and got enlightened on the scope of this new specialty called ‘Geriatrics.’ It was enlightening to know that almost all the delegate had a session to chair or present a paper.