Occupational Therapy students and faculty recently conducted their second CarFit event of 2009. CarFit is an educational program that offers older adults the opportunity to check how well their personal vehicles “fit” them. This national program is coordinated between the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), the American Automobile Association (AAA) and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
This year’s events were held in Hendersonville at the Hendersonville AAA Club and the Hendersonville First United Methodist Church with older adult drivers being assessed in their personal vehicles. The OTD students were required to become CarFit Technicians through a training conducted by Dr. Ruth Ford, Associate Dean and CarFit Event Coordinator. Dr. Ford has spoken at the Tennessee Occupational Therapy Middle District Association as well as AARP State of Tennessee Annual Leadership Conference on CarFit as part of their Driver Safety Program. The next AARP training is set for November 20th at Henry Horton State Park.
The CarFit program provides information and materials on community-specific resources that could enhance their safety as drivers, and/or increase their mobility in the community. Older drivers are often the safest drivers in that they are more likely to wear their seatbelts, and less likely to speed or drink and drive. However, older drivers are more likely to be killed or seriously injured when a crash does occur due to the greater fragility of their aging bodies.
Daily Archives: November 12, 2009
Where in the World is Mike Voight?
PT Professor Mike Voight serves in a variety of consulting roles for businesses and organizations which provides opportunity for him to travel the world and meet fascinating people. Where has he been lately? The answer – Madrid, Spain.
Dr. Voight was one of two keynote speakers at XI Jornadas Nacionales y Internacional de Fisioterapia held in Madrid, Spain recently. The event was held in conjunction with the Spanish Olympic Committee and hosted at their National headquarters. The topic of his presentation was Current Concepts in Hip Pathology. In addition, Dr. Voight was also a guest of the Spanish Soccer Federation and the Real Madrid Football club and spent time in their facilities.
Chirico presents to local caregiver group
Dr. Mark Chirico, faculty member in the School of Pharmacy, recently presented to the Older Adult Caregivers’ Support Group at the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville. The title of his presentation was “Medication Safety in Older Adults: An Issue of Poison Control”. The audience consisted of church members and caregivers who were seeking advice on how to safely manage medications for older adults.
School of Nursing Hosts Simulation Conference
Nearly 150 educators and hospital administrators from Tennessee and various other states attended the second annual Tennessee Nursing Simulation Conference at Belmont University last weekend. The conference was presented by Belmont’s School of Nursing and The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee through a grant from the Partners Investing in Nursing’s Future – a collaborative initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Health Foundation.
The conference theme was Education and Practice: Working Together to Improve Patient Outcomes and included over 40 sessions which covered all aspects of medical simulation. The conference was designed to provide a comprehensive overview of simulation technology and resources and to build communication networks for educators in Tennessee. Conference faculty included nationally renowned experts on simulation technology in healthcare education and training from such institutions as Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt Medical Center, Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, Fort Sanders Regional Hospital, Austin Peay State University, Maury Regional Medical Center, Union University, University of Kentucky School of Nursing, Tennessee Center for Nursing and Belmont University.
Belmont’s Gordon E. Inman Center and Healthcare Simulation Center provided excellent facilities for the conference, with comfortable meeting rooms and state-of-the-art laboratories and simulation mannequins. The Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences and Nursing is a Laerdal Center of Educational Excellence for simulation, one of only 12 such centers designated in the United States. Also featured were demonstrations by several companies, including Laerdal, METI, Elsevier, Pocket Nurse, and Kyoto Kagaku, all which specialize in the latest simulation equipment and accessories.