Aging and Long-Term Care

As the U.S. population ages, a study on the Older Americans Act Nutrition program reveals it delivers more than just food—recipients say it prevents nursing home placements, supports caregivers and provides a crucial daily social link.

Professor Ellen McCreedy is a musician and gerontologist whose research harnesses the power of music to recall memories. Driven to give dementia sufferers, and their caregivers, a moment of having themselves back again, McCreedy joined Humans in Public Health to discuss her work, its challenges and the grandmother who first showed her music’s power to break through Alzheimer’s disease.

Ellen McCreedy, associate professor of health services, policy, and practice at the Brown University School of Public Health, is studying a toe-tapping alternative that could reduce reliance on antipsychotic medications. The university’s ongoing study, “Music and Memory,” looks at how music can be used as a non-pharmacological intervention for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Medicaid, the largest payer for long-term care facilities, covers around 2 in 3 nursing home residents, and reducing dollars to the massive, yet already resource-limited, program could have disastrous effects on older adults’ health, safety and quality of life. Vincent Mor, professor of health services, policy and practice at the Brown University School of Public Health, comments.

For older patients with dementia, can beloved music from their teenage years provide comfort in moments of anxiety and stress? Professor Ellen McCreedy studied a personalized music intervention’s power to improve the quality of life for older adults with Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias.

In celebration of this year's National Postdoc Appreciation Week, the Brown University School of Public Health is proud to showcase its postdoctoral researchers and to thank them for their contributions to our public health community.

A decades-long debate about prescribing habits in long-term care facilities is renewed with heartening evidence.

Meehir Dixit ’24, a newly minted Brown alumnus with a concentration in public health, has already found a home as a research assistant in the School of Public Health’s Center for Gerontology & Health Research and Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research (CAHPR).

Without a professional background in public health, but with passion for improving the health of vulnerable populations and for acquiring the tools needed to meet her goals, Iranian immigrant Navid Nickpour is creating connections at PACE Organization of Rhode Island.

Brown researchers find that routine testing of asymptomatic residents identifies carriers and prevents outbreaks within long-term care settings.

Brown researchers compared assisted living residents in Florida who evacuated during Hurricane Irma to those who sheltered in place in order to determine the health risks inherent in long-term care disaster planning and response.

To promote partnership between local community members, organizations and researchers at Brown, the School of Public Health has established new research awards, with inaugural funding for projects impacting Rhode Island’s children and older adults.

Over his 40 years at Brown, Professor Vincent Mor has worked tirelessly to change the way we care for older adults and people with dementia. He has also fundamentally changed Brown University itself, by first envisioning and then helping to found its School of Public Health.

For nearly 150 years, Brown experts have redefined what it means to practice public health by heeding the voices of communities, in Rhode Island and beyond.

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans has grown substantially in the past few decades, enticing more than half of eligible people, primarily those 65 or older, with low premium costs and perks like dental and vision insurance. And as the private plans' share of the Medicare patient pie has ballooned to 30.8 million people, so too have concerns about the insurers' aggressive sales tactics and misleading coverage claims.

Together, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute have awarded a 5-year, $5 million grant to create the Learning Health systems training to improve Disability and chronic condition care (LeaHD) center at Brown University.

Examining over a decade of motor vehicle crash data involving older drivers, Brown study sheds light on a worrying trend: an increase in the prescription of potentially impairing medications, post-accident.

Life expectancy in the United States rose in 2022, the first increase since the COVID pandemic began, according to new federal data. But those gains were not enough to compensate for the years of life lost to the virus, which remains one of the nation’s top causes of death.

Lacking federal guidelines, health care professionals in state-regulated facilities determine dosing for seniors with dementia, greatly impacting the care residents receive.

A companion is a surrogate family member — news-provider, anxiety-reducer, FaceTime operating system-fixer, an eyes and ears to daily life. Their presence relieves loneliness and depression, as lethal as other chronic health conditions, says the study’s author, Jennifer Nazareno, assistant professor at Brown University School of Public Health.

It’s important to ask questions that go beyond basics, says Dr. Vincent Mor, professor of health services policy at the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research at Brown University School of Public Health.

Next-generation dementia care and research includes the voices of those living with the disease. Professors Kali Thomas and Jill Harrison find inclusive research improves results.

The Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health joins the Alzheimer's Association, the American College of Radiology, and the American Society of Neuroradiology in announcing a new national registry, The National Treatment and Diagnostic Alzheimer's Registry, to quickly and transparently advance science by utilizing real-world evidence on new and developing therapies.

Brown University's Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research and Meals on Wheels America have announced a collaboration on a three-year research initiative to investigate the most effective mode of meal delivery to support older adults’ ability to age in place in their homes and out of institutional settings.

Facilities that serve single types of skilled nursing patients —and a payment system that differentiates and reimburses accordingly—would improve care for seniors and benefit providers, according to preeminent long-term care researcher Vincent Mor, professor of health services, policy and practice.

Today, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) has awarded a supplemental grant to Brown University School of Public Health to design an adverse event monitoring system to identify adverse health impacts after receipt of COVID-19 vaccination by elderly nursing home residents.

McKnight's Long-Term Care News - A study involving hundreds of Veterans Affairs patients shows a link between the diabetes drug metformin and a lower risk of death from COVID-19.

“Social distancing” is required to prevent infection. But loneliness can make us sick.

30 years of accomplishment by Brown’s Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research

Kali Thomas focuses on identifying ways to improve the quality of life for older adults needing long-term services and support through applied health services research.

The results are the first part of a national study of whether a method to detect Alzheimer’s-related plaques improves the outcomes of patients with mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

The Center for Long-Term Care Quality & Innovation, known as Q&I, is a sister research center to the Center for Gerontology.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has awarded a five-year $53.4 million grant to Brown University and Boston-based Hebrew SeniorLife (HSL) to lead a nationwide effort to improve health care and quality of life for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, as well as their caregivers.