For immediate release: May 18, 2007
Contact: Emily Wofford Cobb
Public Relations Manager
775-784-6006
ecobb@medicine.nevada.edu
School of Medicine offers free class to Alzheimer’s patient caregivers
Telemedicine course offered June 5th in locations throughout Northern Nevada
RENO, Nev. – University of Nevada School of Medicine professor Debra Fredericks, Ph.D. will offer a free class to caregivers of patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease on Tuesday, June 5. The class, titled “Coping with Change,” is part of a program provided by the School of Medicine’s Rural Dementia Telemedicine Initiative Project and is one in a series of Alzheimer’s caregiver education classes. The class will be offered in multiple locations across Northern Nevada via televideo.
“The purpose of this class is not only to provide support to professional caregivers but to family caregivers as well,” says Fredericks, who also serves as the school’s associate director of the Center for Cognitive Aging in Reno. “Caregivers need the education and skills to help their patients, but they also need a support network available to them to help them deal with the changes that are occurring in someone close to them.”
Fredericks’ free class on “Coping with Change” will be available in teleconference rooms at the following locations from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, June 5:
For further information regarding “Coping with Change,” please contact Lisa Dinwiddie, R.N., rural outreach coordinator, at 775-738-8411.
The Rural Dementia Telemedicine Initiative project provides services for Alzheimer’s patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals. Services include the delivery of diagnosis, disease management and treatment in rural and underserved communities. The School of Medicine’s Center for Cognitive Aging delivers these services to rural parts of the state via telemedicine. The telemedicine program provides the opportunity for rural patients to meet “face-to-face” with urban medical specialists.
As well as offering medical care services, the telemedicine project is utilized to train healthcare professionals, providers and caregivers and provides a venue by which support groups can meet. The project works to reduce the economic burden associated with long-term care costs for patients, families and employers through early identification and intervention of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. More than an estimated 375 Nevada families will benefit by utilizing this program over the next three years.
As the state’s only public medical school, the University Of Nevada School Of Medicine has been meeting statewide healthcare, educational, and clinical needs since 1969. The School of Medicine encompasses 16 clinical medical education departments, including Family Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Internal Medicine, Surgery, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, as well as ten nationally-recognized departments within basic science including microbiology and biomedical engineering. As the largest multi-specialty healthcare focus within the state, the School of Medicine employs more than 185 doctors who both teach and practice medicine throughout Nevada. The school’s statewide faculty physician practice group has a combined 25 different medical specialties with seven physician practice offices located in the Reno-Sparks area and five physician offices located in Las Vegas.
The University Of Nevada School Of Medicine utilizes a best-practice approach to medicine and is committed to addressing the health needs of Nevada now and in the future. For more information, please visit www.medicine.nevada.edu.
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