SMHS to explore ‘disrupting aging’ at Continuing Education Symposium for UND Homecoming 2021

GRAND FORKS, N.D.—Fall, football, and friends. All are in the air this time of year as colleges and universities across the country gear up for Homecoming celebrations of all sorts. The UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences is no exception. Given the ongoing pandemic, however, the School will play host to a much more limited schedule of events that we hope you can attend—at least virtually.

The School’s main event will be its annual, multi-disciplinary Continuing Education Symposium for health providers. This year, the “Disrupting Aging” Continuing Education Symposium will be held on Friday, Oct. 22, from 8:30 – 11:30 a.m. “Disrupting Aging” will provide participants with an overview of current basic and clinical research that supports the premise that aging can be slowed and possibly reversed. With UND’s departments of Geriatrics and Biomedical Sciences leading the way, the symposium will focus on the Geriatric “4Ms” – mobility, mentation, medication, and what matters – to describe how communities can make themselves more age-friendly and, in so doing, improve quality-of-life and lower the cost of older adult healthcare.

The complimentary symposium will be held in Rooms W201-W202 of the School of Medicine & Health Sciences, 1301 N. Columbia Rd., and will be accessible online via Zoom to registrants. The event will provide participants with 2.5 educational credit hours. Speakers from departments across the School, and some from outside UND, will be on hand to discuss the latest developments in age-related healthcare, including:

• “Biological Methods to Slow Aging” with Holly Brown-Borg, Ph.D., UND Department of Biomedical Sciences
• “What Matters: IP Collaboration to Enhance Wellness through Functional Activities” with Sclinda Jansen, Ph.D., OTR/L, UND Department of Occupational Therapy
• “Mobility and Aging” with Meridee Danks, D.P.T., UND Department of Physical Therapy
• “The Geriatric 4Ms: Mind” with Don Jurivich, D.O., UND Department of Geriatrics
• “Deprescribing Medications in Older Adults” with Rebecca Brynjulson, Pharm.D., NDSU School of Pharmacy
• “Geri Pop: A Game to Apply the 4Ms to Patient Populations” with Rick Van Eck, Ph.D., and Gunjan Manocha, Ph.D., UND Departments of Education Resources and Geriatrics

It is with regret that we’ve canceled our School’s 2021 Milestone Banquet for alumni. This decision was made after careful consideration of the current trajectory of the COVID-19 delta variant in the region, and its likely community presence later in October.

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Brian James Schill
Director, Office of Alumni & Community Relations
University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences
701.777.2733 direct | 701.777.4305 office
brian.schill@UND.edu  |  med.und.edu