Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC)

Puget Sound GRECC

• Aging, genetics, and environmental factors in neurodegeneration and dementia
• Brain pharmacodynamics and drug transport in normative aging, injury, and dementia
• Endocrinology relating aging, body composition, and cancer

• Genetic dissection of catecholaminergic innervation of the cognitive cerebellum
• Mechanisms of action of ghrelin in muscle and adipose tissue in cancer-related cachexia
• Understanding the interplay between pathological tau and TDP-43 in dementia
• Growth Hormone Replacement Therapy for Veterans with TBI and AGHD and Gulf War Illness and AGHD.
• Approach to the aberrant androgen receptor signaling in lethal prostate cancer
• The role of APOE locus genes regulation in Alzheimer’s disease
• Genetic movement disorders: etiologies and pathogeneses
• Air Pollution, the aging brain and Alzheimer's disease
• Inhibiting MSUT2 as a candidate intervention for aging related tauopathy

• Partner with Northwest Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Center (NWGWEC), which conducts inter-professional education and training programs to improve the primary care of older adults in the Northwest United States.
• Hub site for the Geriatric Scholars program which enhances geriatric education in rural VA facilities, virtual and in-person experiences. 
• Advanced Fellowship in Geriatrics training site, as well as a training site for Psychiatry and Medicine fellows and residents.
• Support of VA Puget Sound trainees in optometry, social work, psychology, audiology, chaplaincy, and speech-language pathology.
• VISN 20 Dementia Committee and VA Puget Sound geriatrics education.
• Hub site for GRECC Connect (virtual geriatrics).
• GRECC Aging Cognition and Education (ACE) workgroup with Healthy Aging Brain educational products and home of the 3Ds (Delirium, Dementia, and Depression) pocket card

• Implementation and effect of Patient Priorities Care (PPC) in CLCs, CBOCs.
• MOV-ing FREE-ly (Multicomponent, Otago, Virtual, Falls Reduction, Education, and Exercise Class).
• Implementation of the Risk Analysis Index (RAI) into general and specialty surgery clinics.
• The ability to screen and appropriately refer frail and non-frail patients to pre-operative rehabilitative, nutrition and geriatric consultative care.
• Drug Burden Index (DBI) as a way to encourage deprescribing in older adults at risk of falling.
• Dissemination of Patient Priorities Care in VA and home site for the PPC Mentored Partner Program.

• Activity of the Androgen Receptor through cMYC Repression and Recruitment of the DREAM Complex. Cancer Res. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37352376/
• Supraphysiological Androgens Promote the Tumor Suppressive Activity of the Androgen Receptor through cMYC Repression and Recruitment of the DREAM Complex. Cancer Res. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37352376/
• Homozygous CADPS2 Mutations Cause Neurodegenerative Disease with Lewy Body-like Pathology in Parrots. Mov Disord. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36086934/
• Guiding Post-Hospital Recovery by ‘What Matters:’ Implementation of Patient Priorities Identification in a VA Community Living Center. Geriatrics. https://doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics8040074
• Implementation of a Multicomponent Otago-Based Virtual Fall Reduction, Education, and Exercise Program (MOVing FREEly) in Older Veterans. Geriatrics. https://doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics8060115
• STEADI Self-Report Measures Independently Predict Fall Risk. Gerontol Geriatr Med. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35647219/

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