ATHENS, Ohio - The fall series of Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine's Geriatric Education Brown Bag seminars continues Monday, Oct. 21, with Stacey Commerford presenting "The Aural Rehabilitation Needs of an Aging Population." The seminar will be held from noon to 1 p.m. at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, Room B-9.

Commerford, a doctoral student at OU, will discuss the communications needs of the aging population and the communication strategies being used. The seminar's focus will be on hearing services, including educating people about hearing aids, lip reading and other communication strategies. Within the speech therapy area of study, Commerford has chosen oral rehabilitation because of the increasing needs of the aging population, she said.

"Oral rehabilitation is vital to communication. It falls in the hands of allied health professionals to understand oral rehabilitation in order to have effective communication with patients," Commerford said.

Health-care professionals are invited to attend the seminar. Brown bags are welcome. For more information, call the Geriatric Education Center at (740) 593-2258. Each lecture in this series of geriatric medicine/gerontology seminars is held from noon to 1 p.m. on the first and third Mondays of each month at O'Bleness, Room B-9.This is the third seminar in the fall series.

The first seminar was Sept. 16, with Jen-Tzer Gau, M.D., Ph.D., presenting "Failure to Thrive." The second seminar was Oct. 7, with Cynthia Marling, Ph.D., presenting "Coming Technologies for Elder Care." The topic of the Nov. 4 seminar is to be announced. On Nov. 18 William Walker will present "Legal Dilemmas of Aging: The Physician's Role in Competency."

"The seminars are designed for an interdisciplinary audience," said Ellen Peterson, R.N., OU-COM geriatric education coordinator. "Health professionals from the community regularly attend, in addition to interns, residents and medical students. The diversity of disciplines represented by the participants makes for an interesting exchange of ideas."

The sponsors of the seminars include the Department of Geriatric Medicine/Gerontology, the Western Reserve Geriatric Education Center and Area Health Education Center and OU-COM.

Peterson said the seminar series was started by a federal grant that established OU-COM as a contributing site to the Western Reserve Geriatric Education Center in September 1994 and has supported many continuing education programs. Provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, the grant supports educational programs in geriatrics and gerontology for physicians, nurses, social workers, counselors and health-care providers to 22 Southeastern Ohio counties.