Research Activities

The impact of chronic disease is greatest among older adults, yet they are often the most understudied, and their voice is often not heard in local and regional research initiatives.

Faculty within the Geriatric Medicine Program collaborate with the Department of Family and Community Medicine research division and local agencies including the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University (OH) and the Council on Aging (COA) to address the healthcare needs of the aging population, through research.

A Combined Research & Geriatrics Scholarly Group meets quarterly to present and review scholarly projects. Faculty are also working to develop a new Geriatrics Research Network to study health and disease among the older populations.

Current Research Projects:

• Timing the measurement of finger stick blood sugar (FSBS) checks in patients with diabetes.  The newer medications have allowed many patients with diabetes to decrease or stop insulin. We will be measuring the time it takes to measure the FSBS to quantify the savings. 

• Dehydration is common in older adults. We have shown that 37% of community-living older adults are dehydrated. We are looking into the prevalence of dehydration in nursing homes, how to mitigate it, and if there is an association with stroke. 

• We have developed a map of fall prevention courses, along with a calendar, and embedded the link into the falls screening tools of the electronic health records of regional health systems in Southwest Ohio.

• During the COVID pandemic we were awarded a grant to teach COVID management to 180 nursing homes in Southwest Ohio.