Description

I hope that all our readers are revitalised after the festivities of 2007 coming to a close and 2008 beginning. This will be the third volume of the journal received by BGS members and so by now you should hopefully be getting a feel for the added value of the journal to your CME needs. You may even be enthused with the idea of offering your expertise to write a review article for the journal.

Towards the end of 2007 the National Audit Office published a damning report of the state of services for patients with dementia, some areas of excellence but largely a system full of holes. It was therefore timely that we had commissioned and include in this volume two excellent reviews on dementia. The article by Hennelly and Lawlor reminds us of the importance of dementia care within the acute hospital setting; whilst that by Mangoni and Jackson prompts us to seek and modify vascular risk factors in those at risk of developing dementia or those who already have dementia. At last it seems that dementia care is coming in to the spotlight and taking its rightful place centre stage in Geriatric Medicine. In our day to day practice of Geriatric Medicine we can not escape patients with dementia; they will be on our wards, in our general and specialist clinics (e.g. stroke, falls and Parkinsons), in our rehabilitation facilities, and will feature large on the list of delayed discharges. The Department of Health (DH), England is currently developing its mental health strategy led by Professor Sube Bannerjee, if you have an opportunity to influence this please do not waste it.

This volume of the journal also includes a well researched article on the management of diabetes and its complications, as well as an excellent practical guide to managing nausea and vomiting in palliative care.

New to the journal is the inclusion of two research articles which both have special relevance to CME. Your comments would be welcome on this development.

As always, I would welcome feedback from readers as to how you would like to see the journal develop, its educational content and any recommendations for future topics to be reviewed. If you consider yourself an expert in any particular aspect of caring for older people then why not offer to review that area, the worst I can say is we would welcome your submission for consideration!

May your inbox be free of complaints!

Duncan Forsyth