Look for Us at the Aging in America Conference

When people in their sixties, seventies, or eighties experience unusual feelings — lost time, suspended awareness, confusion, seizures — they may think that simply “getting older” is to blame. However, there may be another explanation: they may have become one of the 300,000 senior citizens in the U.S. with epilepsy. Therefore, it is important for people serving the senior community to be able to recognize seizures and know appropriate first aid.

To help meet this need, Phyllis Givens, program manager with the Epilepsy Foundation, will be presenting at the American Society on Aging’s “Aging in America Conference" in Chicago, Illinois, between March 20-24. Her presentation, Seniors and Seizures: A Training Program for Organizations Serving Older Adults, will showcase the Foundation’s Seniors and Seizures Training program. This session will offer attendees an opportunity to engage in an interactive training and provide tools for them to take back to their agencies and replicate with their staff.

Phyllis works with our programs conducted under our five-year cooperative agreement with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She will be presenting at the conference with Ayesha Akhtar, director of education with the Epilepsy Foundation Greater Chicago, and Shannon Skowronski MPH, MSW, aging services program specialist, with the Administration for Community Living.

If you are planning to attend this conference, please be sure to stop by this session.