MCOA Events
Current Events
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Previous Events
The MCOA provided a spring educational course at the Falls Church community center. The four week course was led by MCOA fellows that included discussions on cognitive and oral health.
The Gerontological Society of America student chapter club hosted a Board Game Night for MU students and chapter members which featured several games such as chess
and puzzles. It was an engaging event that helped promote brain health in a fun way. It also provided a great opportunity for chapter members to connect and network with other students, fostering a sense of community and collaboration.
We were delighted to host an exciting in-person presentation with Karen Tracy, a renowned expert in the use of the KAER TOOLKIT for brain health. Karen highlighted the importance of early cognitive function screening for brain health by using the KAER toolkit. The presentation also included practical methods and approaches to introduce clinically validated tools that can be effortlessly incorporated into a variety of healthcare practices and community services.
Our team attended the fourth Workshop on Research Definitions for Reserve and Resilience in Cognitive Aging and Dementia on December 03, 2023. The workshop aimed to continue building well-defined operational definitions for cognitive reserve, brain maintenance, and brain reserve, with resilience as an overarching concept. These definitions standardize terminology, facilitating comparisons across studies and species.
The MCOA team was excited to attend the GSA 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting. MCOA fellow Dr. Uma Kelekar and MCOA Affiliate Dr. Sara Pappa presented their work on unsafe home environments on older adult falls and evidence-based falls prevention programs respectively. MCOA Director, Dr. Patricia Heyn led the GSA Diversity Mentoring & Career Development Technical Assistance Workshop and also presented her various research works in cognition. MCOA Researcher, Mahederemariam Dagne, presented her inaugural research on the gaps in how information is presented in public health websites. The event held in Tampa, Florida, brings together renowned Gerontologists from all over the country and provided a great opportunity for the team to showcase their work and engage with experts in the field.
Dr. Patricia Heyn led a special symposium delving into the intersection of racism and health inequity in rehabilitation science at the 2023 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine Annual Conference. The conference offered unparalleled opportunities to foster valuable connections within the rehabilitation field and an abundance of tools, and nonstop content focused on chronic disabling conditions for ACRM members and the rehabilitation community.
Dr. Catherine Diaz-Asper presented her research on using artificial intelligence to detect cognitive decline at the 2023 Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease conference in late October. Her approach analyzes speech by combining advances in artificial intelligence with the convenience of the telephone to develop a screening tool that could reach many more people than current methods.
