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President
Renato Maia Guimarães, MD
Dr. Renato Maia Guimarães is President of the International Association of Gerontology for the term 2005 to 2009 and was the chair of the organizing committee of the XVIII International Congress of IAG, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 26-30, 2005. He graduated in Medicine in 1975 and spent two years in the University of Birmingham, England, working under the supervision of Professor Bernard Isaacs. In Birmingham Dr Maia Guimarães was deeply involved in research on falls in the elderly and published with Professor Isaacs a pioneer paper on gait abnormalities related to falls.(Guimarães R M , Isaacs B. Characteristics of gait in old people who fall. Int. Rehab. Med, 1980; 2: 177-180.) His MSc. thesis was also based in the research in gait and falls.
On returning to Brazil Dr. Maia Guimarães developed the Health Program for the Elderly in the Brazilian Ministry of Health. For five years he traveled all over the country as a consultant to the local health authorities in the epidemiological transition and in planning health assistance for the elderly. During the time he was in the Ministry of Health Dr Maia Guimarães also created a program for health promotion (Viva Bem a Idade que Você Tem) recognized as the most creative and efficient strategy for education of the elderly in Brazil so far. In 1991 Dr Maia Guimarães took a position in the University Hospital in the Universidade de Brasília where he developed the Medical Center for the Elderly, where he is the coordinator and also teaches Geriatric Medicine. This center has a geriatric out patient clinic, a memory clinic, a Psychogeriatric day hospital, a research center on physical activity for the elderly and special services for Alzheimer's patients. The Ministry of Health has nominated it as a reference center for the elderly. Dr Maia Guimarães was a member of the WHO Experts Panel in Health of the Elderly and has been a consultant to the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) in education in Geriatrics. He is a Co-author of the PAHO "Manual de Aspectos Clinicos del Adulto Mayor".
Dr Maia Guimarães has been very active in the Brazilian Geriatrics and Gerontological Society, where he served two terms as president. He organized several congresses including the XII Brazilian Congress of Geriatrics and Gerontology, the First Brazil-France meeting in Geriatrics, and the VII forum of Geriatric Neuro-Psychiatry. He was a founder member of the Brazilian Association of Geriatric Neuro-Psychiatry and of the Brazilian Association for Alzheimer Disease (ABRAZ). He has been a IAG council member since 1997. He is the author of "Signals and Symptoms in Geriatrics" a book that is widely recognized in Brazil and is now in the second edition. Dr Maia Guimarães has published more than 40 papers and book chapters and has presented over 280 papers in scientific meetings in Brazil and abroad. In 2001 he was awarded a distinction for research he conducted and published in the scientific journal of the Brasilia Medical Association (Depression: the unrecognized morbidity in the elderly surgical patient). Dr Maia Guimarães is involved in community affairs and gives many speeches about aging all over the country. His research interests are Alzheimer disease, depression and epidemiology of aging. Dr Maia Guimarães also has a special interest in mechanisms of aging.
