University of Wisconsin–Madison

Tag: managing chronic illness

Evidence-Based Practice Corner: What We Talk About When We Talk About Surgery

In the United States, older adults have more than one-third of all operations. Each year, some 500,000 elders consider major surgery, such as coronary bypasses or organ transplants. As people are leading not only longer but also healthier lives, physicians are more likely to suggest aggressive treatment options for older adults. Many elders benefit from …

Is Big Data the Future of Healthy Aging?

“By the age of seventy, on average people have at least two chronic conditions. Many will have more than that,” says Parminder Raina, PhD, the director of the McMaster Institute of GeroScience in Ontario, Canada, and a professor of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics. He spoke at the Annual Colloquium on Aging in September, organized by …

How Family Can Help – and Sometimes Hinder – the Management of Chronic Illness

“The management of chronic illnesses is demanding,” says Karen Rook, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California–Irvine. “Patients frequently must initiate and then sustain changes in multiple health behaviors, often for the rest of their lives,” explains Rook, the keynote speaker at the UW Institute on Aging’s 2014 colloquium. “They …