AGE participated in the European Research Forum for discoveries and innovations for healthy ageing that was held in Brussels on 3rd September 2014. The forum was divided in three sessions related to public health, innovative research and future EU-funding in that area.
I. Session 1 deals with public health research for the ageing population.
It introduces three projects that work on improving health condition at national and European level. They target the improvement of health literacy of the ageing population to create synergies by combining better medical management with exercise and dietary programmes for elderly patients with diabetes and examine how integrated care could be implemented into European health care systems.
Those projects are:
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- IROHLA: The Intervention Research On Healthy Literacy among Ageing Population (www.irohla.eu). It emphasizes the need to use knowledge to empower and educate older people on health related issues so that they people are able to access, understand, appraise and communicate information to engage with the demands of different health contexts in order to promote and maintain good health across the life. It also focusses on improving health professionals’ ability to provide clear and simple communication on health issues.
- The Mid-Frail-Study: Examining the Effectiveness of Optimized Medical Management. (www.midfrail-study.org)
- Project Integrate: Benchmarking Integrated Care for better Management of Chronic and Age-related Conditions in Europe. (www.projectintegrate.eu)
II. Session 2 deals with innovative research for healthy ageing.
It presents projects that do use new methodology and seek new pathways to deepen the knowledge on age related diseases like metabolic diseases, heart failure and Alzheimer’s disease.
Those projects are:
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- HUMAN: Health and the Understanding of Metabolism, Ageing and Nutrition (www.agedbrainsysbio.eu)
- HOMAGE: Heart OMics in AGEing (www.homage-hf.eu)
- AgedBrainSYSBIO: Systems biology of pathways involving brain ageing (www.agedbrainsysbio.eu)
III. The last third session looks at the future of EU-funded health research within healthy ageing.
By and large, the projects address the challenges posed by the demographic change. We have been very successful in extending the life expectancy. We now need to have an impact in a more innovative rather than classic manner for healthy ageing, and have a significant impact on healthy life years rather than longevity.
