Teaching empathy: comparison of a virtual reality experience using head-mounted display versus group streaming.

Empathy, an integral component of bedside manners, correlates with good healthcare provision. Training physician assistant (PA) students using Head-Mounted Display (HMD) virtual reality (VR) contributed to significant empathy increases. This pilot study, which relied on a retrospective analysis, compared a VR experience using HMD to a streamed modality (due to COVID safety) with PA students to measure empathy.

The #PalliativeCare Conversation on Twitter: An Analysis of Trends, Content, and Caregiver Perspectives.

Context: Palliative care is known to improve patients' quality of life, but oftentimes these conversations occur outside of the health-care setting.

Objectives: To characterize the #PalliativeCare Twitter network and evaluate the caregiver experience within palliative care.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 182,661 #PalliativeCare tweets by 26,837 users from June 1, 2015 to June 1, 2019 were analyzed using Symplur Signals.

48-Hour Hospice Home Immersion Encourages Osteopathic Medical Students to Broaden Their Views on Dying and Death.

To augment learning about interprofessional palliative and end-of-life care, the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine immersed 2 second-year osteopathic medical students in an 18-bed acute care hospice home in Scarborough, Maine, for 48 hours. The students worked with an interprofessional staff and independently to provide patient care, family support, and postmortem care. For data collection, students wrote in journals before the immersion experience (prefieldwork), while living in the hospice home (fieldwork), and for 10 days following the immersion experience (postfieldwork).

Health professions education: Advancing geriatrics and gerontology competencies through Age-Friendly University (AFU) Principles.

This article elucidates opportunities for health professions education programs to make a mark in the Age Friendly University (AFU) initiative. Specifically, key approaches are introduced for health professions education programs based on the Age Friendly University Global Network initiative and the Academy for Gerontology/Geriatrics in Higher Education (AGHE) Program of Merit for Health Professions Programs. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that offer health professions education, have various options to establish and enhance student gerontology/geriatrics competence and confidence.

Using virtual reality in medical education to teach empathy.

Objective: The project adopted technology that teaches medical and other health professions students to be empathetic with older adults, through virtual reality (VR) software that allows them to simulate being a patient with age-related diseases, and to familiarize medical students with information resources related to the health of older adults.

Methods: The project uses an application that creates immersive VR experiences for training of the workforce for aging services. Users experience age-related conditions such as macular degeneration and high-frequency hearing loss from the patient's perspective.

Delirium and the Family Caregiver: The Need for Evidence-based Education Interventions.

Delirium, an acute confusional state, is experienced by many older adults. Although there is substantial research on risk factors and etiology, we hypothesized that there is a dearth of information on educating the family caregivers of delirious older patients. A date-specific (2000-2013) literature review of articles, written in English, was conducted in several major databases using keyword searches.

Learning by living: life-altering medical education through nursing home-based experiential learning.

The University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine Learning by Living Project (referred to as Learning by Living) was piloted in 2006 as an experiential medical education learning model. Since its inception, medical and other health professions students have been "admitted" into nursing homes to live the life of an older adult nursing home resident for approximately 2 weeks-24 hours a day/7 days a week-complete with a medical diagnosis and "standard" procedures of care. The Learning by Living Project applies qualitative ethnographic/autobiographic research methods to collect students' perspectives and experiences about life lived as an older adult with functional challenges in a residential setting.

Osteopathic medicine and the silver tsunami: preparing tomorrow's first responders for the elder boom.

In response to the shifting demographics observed in the United States, a variety of organizations have begun issuing consensus statements and patient care guidelines to help health professionals meet the anticipated medical needs of the older population. The authors describe a collaborative effort within the osteopathic medical profession focused on translating geriatric core competencies into curricula guidelines for osteopathic medical education. Osteopathic physicians will likely be the "first responders" for elder care needs in the United States as a result of their disproportionately high rates of primary care practice.

End-of-life care curricula in undergraduate medical education: a comparison of allopathic and osteopathic medical schools.

End-of-life care curricula in osteopathic medical schools were compared with allopathic school offerings. An 8-question online survey of undergraduate medical education administrators at all United States osteopathic medical schools (n = 26) and 26 allopathic schools geographically closest to them was conducted in 2007. Responses from 80% (n = 21) of osteopathic schools and 77% (n = 20) of allopathic schools revealed that both osteopathic and allopathic medical schools offered end-of-life care education.

Functional fitness: maintaining or improving function for elders with chronic diseases.

Objective: This study's objective was to prove or disprove four hypotheses, three addressing physical function and a subjective measure of self-perceived well-being from participating in an elder functional fitness program.

Methods: Participants included 17 chronically ill residents from an assisted-living center in Maine. Measures on mobility, metabolic equivalent estimation (MET) levels, resting heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, muscular strength, flexibility, and body weight were conducted at three intervals-baseline, 6 months, and 1 year.