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IPA Bulletin

Planning is Well Underway for IPA's 1999 Congress in Vancouver

Joel Sadavoy

Canada is honored to host IPA's Ninth Congress in Vancouver, Canada, which will be held August 15 to 20, 1999. Members of the Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry (CAGP) have enthusiastically embraced the development and planning for this Congress in close partnership with Edmond Chiu, chair of the Meetings Committee, and Fern Finkel, IPA Executive Director.

As chair of the Congress, I have been both gratified and relieved at the degree of outstanding support and the organizational ability of the members of the Organizing Committee, chaired by Lilian Thorpe, associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan at Saskatoon (yes, these are real places, I did not make up the names!). Kevin Solomons, head of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, chairs the Publicity and Communications Committee, and Nathan Herrmann, head of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, has undertaken the daunting task of chairing the Scientific Committee. Because Canada is such a large country and the members of the organizing group are in different cities, we have made special efforts to ensure effective communication. Thank goodness for the availability and efficiency of electronic communication technology!

Our theme, "Challenges for the New Millennium: Professional, Cultural, and Regional Diversity," recognizes how our world has shrunk, encouraging closer collaboration among practitioners and nations, even as it emphasizes the wide array of cultural and professional differences that exist in the care of the elderly. This Congress will provide a unique opportunity to gain a world perspective of key developments in our challenging field. To this end we encourage multidisciplinary collaborations in presentations. Part of the fabric of Canadian society is our multicultural and multilingual heritage. In particular, English and French are both official languages in Canada. To fully recognize this fact, the Organizers have invited the Quebec Psychogeriatric Association to co-host French concurrent sessions during two days of the Congress, when there will be simultaneous translation (English-French/French-English) plenary sessions. The close collaboration between the Canadian and American geriatric psychiatry communities is also evidenced in the fact that the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) will sponsor a symposium.

The scientific program reflects an outstanding array of topics and speakers. In all, it is anticipated that presenters will represent more than 20 countries. Plans also are underway to offer continuing education credits. Nine plenary sessions will be offered, beginning with the presidential address by Barry Reisberg, entitled, "Alzheimer's Disease: Retrogenesis: A New View of Symptoms, Management and Origins." Two debate-format plenaries, "The Utility of the Diagnosis of Paraphrenia" (Drs. Howard and Jeste) and "Anxiety Symptoms in Late Life: Symptoms or Syndrome" (Drs. Lindesay, Flint and Brodaty) also will be presented.

A plenary session on treatment of depression, covering both acute and maintenance therapies, will be presented by Drs. Katona and Reynolds. The important topic of the contribution of cerebro-vascular disease to late life disorders will be presented by Drs. Krishan (depression), Shulman (bipolar disorders) and Starkstein (discussant). Ethical issues in geriatric psychiatry will be presented in French, with simultaneous English translation. There also will be an important plenary on the biochemical basis of behavioral disturbances in dementia with Drs. Cummings (acetylcholine), Lawlor (serotonin) and Devanand (dopamine). Finally, two plenaries will focus on world perspectives in geriatric psychiatry, the first on cultural issues and the second on service delivery.

In addition to the plenaries, attendees will be offered a cornucopia of symposia of outstanding quality and depth. These include Suicide in Late Life (Drs. Jacoby and Conwell); Epidemiology of Dementia: Lessons from around the World (Drs. Homma, Mcdowell and Hendrie); Management of Dementia in Long-term Care (Dr. Burns and collaborators); Preventative Strategies for Dementia (Dr. Feldman and collaborators); Delirium (a French symposium, with simultaneous translation, Drs. Primeau, Elie and Rousseau); Neuroimaging (Drs. Chiu and Ames); Clock Drawing (Drs. Shulman, Brodaty, Heinik, Lawlor and Tuokko), Psychotherapy with the Elderly (Drs. Machado, Lazarus and Sadavoy); and two symposia on psychogeriatric education dealing with continuing medical education and post-graduate education. Many other symposia and paper sessions will be included in the program, and I will try to keep you up-to-date on developments in future issues of the IPA Bulletin.

If you have already seen posters for the Congress, you know from the photographs that Vancouver is a startling beautiful city, set in a backdrop of snowcapped mountains and blue ocean. In my next article I will tell you more about the outstanding location and activities of the Congress. We anticipate that this will be the largest Congress in IPA's history. The members of the Organizing Committee and I warmly invite you to join us for an outstanding event in the safe and beautiful city of Vancouver.

Joel Sadavoy, MD, FRCP(c), Congress Chair, is a member of IPA's Board of Directors and is the assistant editor of the IPA Bulletin for Canada. He is affiliated with the Departments of Psychiatry of the University of Toronto, Mount Sinai Hospital, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario.

Reprinted from IPA Bulletin, Volume 15, Number 3