302 Silver Avenue | San Francisco, CA 94112 | 415.334.2500 | www.jhsf.org
302 Silver Avenue | San Francisco, CA 94112 | 415.334.2500 | www.jhsf.org
The Research Center at the Jewish Home shares the common goal with other departments and programs of improving the care and quality of life for seniors.
Research enables us to evaluate approaches to care, to assess current therapies and environments, and to design and evaluate new therapies and programs. Through the creation of a center composed of multidisciplinary researchers, we are hoping to minimize the adverse consequences of aging.
The Jewish Home’s Long-Term Care Research Center was formed in 1997 in collaboration with the (Goldman) Institute on Aging. Janice B. Schwartz, M.D., was recruited in September 2001 as director of Research at the Jewish Home. In 2004, the Jewish Home’s research activities became independent under the direction of the Research department.
The goal of our research center is to discover and disseminate information that will result in improved care of older people, especially for the frail elderly. We hope to improve both the use of existing medical therapies and to develop new therapeutic approaches. We focus our research on common disorders occurring in older people as well as on problems unique to aging populations. Our role is to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and the translation of our and others’ discoveries to beneficial use in older people.
Improving health care and quality of life for older people, especially for the frail elderly, is the focus of research conducted at the Home or in collaboration with other institutions.
The goal of this project is to determine how age, gender, or ethnicity can affect the removal of medications from the body. Among the highlights of Dr. Schwartz’s findings are that women metabolize some, but not all, drugs faster than men; women and men require different doses of medicine; and hormone replacement therapy in women does not affect drug metabolism or responses.
This project seeks to identify moments of meaningful connection between caregivers and nursing home residents and to explore the underlying processes that foster relationships and social connections. An understanding of these processes may contribute to the development of clinical care models that enhance the quality of life of institutionalized adults with dementia.
This study will determine the effects of vitamin D supplements on how quickly the body clears a commonly prescribed cholesterol medication, Lipitor (atorvastatin). Levels of Lipitor will be measured in the blood, and the levels of blood lipids will also be evaluated. Identification of agents that may alter drug metabolism are important for optimizing drug therapy, especially in individuals who take multiple medications and supplements.
Preliminary research data suggest that vitamin D supplements lower blood LDL-cholesterol and total cholesterol levels. If further investigation supports its effectiveness in lowering blood cholesterol levels, vitamin D administration could serve as a valuable addition or alternative to existing treatments for hyperlipidemia. The aim of this research is to detail the effects of vitamin D supplementation on blood lipid levels.
Hopes for developing effective treatments for Alzheimer disease (AD) rest on clinical research, that will need to enroll AD patients, many of whom lack capacity to consent to research. This project will study how responsible parties or agents make decisions about entering Alzheimer disease patients into research projects. It will present protocols of varying risk and benefit levels (1) to determine influences on proxies’ research decisions and perceptions of research and (2) to examine potential influences on the decision making abilities of the proxies themselves.
It is our goal to facilitate research projects at the Jewish Home, while meeting the highest ethical standards and compliance with government regulations and Jewish Home policies and procedures.
Applications for research at the Jewish Home are welcomed. Researchers considering projects at the Jewish Home are encouraged to before completing the application for research at the Jewish Home.
Applications undergo review by the Jewish Home Research Committee but must have a licensed Institutional Review Board approval or Committee on Human Research Approval before they can be considered.
