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Meeting with Senator Collins to Discuss Older Adult Health in Maine
On March 13, Senator Susan Collins took the time to meet with numerous leaders at Massachusetts General Hospital, including Lunder-Dineen's chief learning officer and director of the Norman Knight Nursing Center for Clinical and Professional Development, Gino Chisari, RN, DNP, to discuss advances in caring for individuals with Alzheimer's disease, including Mass General's approach to Alzheimer's clinical care and research.
Senator Collins, first elected in 1996, is serving her third term in the United States Senate. Known for her work in facilitating bipartisan compromise, she is Senate co-chair of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's disease and has worked to increase funding for Alzheimer's research and to strengthen support for family caregivers.
The meeting was an opportunity to share with the Senator's staff Lunder-Dineen's needs assessment research that identified dementia care as a timely and important focus area for older adults in Maine, as well as our work developing webinars from conference presentations on dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Lunder-Dineen is collaborating with physician-leaders in Maine to support the statewide effort to develop increased capabilities statewide to care for patients with memory impairments in primary care settings.
Lunder-Dineen is also sponsoring the upcoming University of Maine Geriatrics Colloquium – Advancing Our Understanding of Aging-in-Place, on May 14, where Senator Collins will deliver remarks.
Visit lunderdineen.org/dementia to learn more.
MOTIVATE Presentation at Maine Quality Counts QC2015 Conference
On April 1, Lunder-Dineen’s MOTIVATE team presented a breakout session on our MOTIVATE oral health education initiative at the Maine Quality Counts QC2015 conference at the Augusta Civic Center, attended by approximately 1,100 Maine health care professionals.
MOTIVATE – which stands for Maine’s Oral Team-Based Initiative: Vital Access to Education – is an innovative and Maine-tailored education program developed by Lunder-Dineen and a statewide advisory team. The program was developed in response to national calls-to-action from the U.S. Surgeon General, American Dental Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and others to raise awareness about the connection between good oral health and good overall health. The project’s mission is to use the latest research findings to improve, promote and protect the oral and overall health of long-term care residents in Maine using evidence-based programs in a collaborative education and practice model.
The MOTIVATE session provided an in-depth look at the framework behind the project, and allowed attendees to consider both the value of establishing collaborative interprofessional partnerships and the potential for adapting the MOTIVATE model to a wide range of community-based health initiatives.
 Speakers included Lunder-Dineen professional development specialist Carole MacKenzie, RN, BSN, MEd, and Maine-based MOTIVATE advisory team members Leonard Brennan, DMD, co-director of Harvard's Dental Geriatric Fellowship Program and practicing dentist in Portland; Marilyn Gugliucci, PhD, director of Geriatric Education and Research at the University of New England; and Demi Kouzounas, DMD, immediate past president of the Maine Dental Association and practicing dentist in Scarborough.
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