4th International Conference on Geriatrics & Gerontological Nursing October 3-4, 2016 London, UK

Canan BirimoÄŸlu is an Research Assistant at Gazi University, Department of Public Health Nursing. She has almost finish her PhD. She is interested in gerontological and geriatric nursing, health promotion, school health and nursing research. Her thesis about Tai Chi Chuan excersize with elderly people.

It is essential for nursing students to have a positive attitude towards the elderly in order to improve care quality. This research was conducted in order to compare the attitude of nursing students from two different countries towards elderly patients. The process of this comperative and descriptive research was composed of two 1st and 2nd grade nursing care students (N=1124). No sample was chosen, 345 students accepting the participation were included. Data was collected with a questionnaire form and an “Attitude Towards Elder People” scale. numbers, percentage distributions, averages, standard deviations, t tests and unidirectional variance analysis were used in the analysis of data. The students’ average age was 21.26±4.2 where 83,5% (n=288) were female, 60,3%(n=208) were 1st grade students. Considering the low dimensions, Finland’s “ positive attitude” low group’s average point is 59.39±6.3; Turkey’s “positive attitude” low groups’s average point is 60.61+-9.7. Finland’s “negative attitude” low group’s average point is 62.38±5.5, Turkey’s “negative attitude” low group’s average point is 59.13±9.7. It was pointed out that Finland’s students’ average point in terms of negative attitude was higher and that the difference was statistically meaningful (p<0.05). It was pointed out that nursing student’s positive attitude towards elders was low. Adding geriatrics and geriatric patient care into the nursing education program, symposiums, panels and conventions, increasing number of in-service training is important in order to improve nurse’s attitude towards the elderly positively.

Tsuyoshi Miyazaki has completed his MD at the age of 24 years and his PhD at the age of 31 years from University of Tokyo and postdoctoral studies from Yale University School of Medicine. He is the director of Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital and Institute of Gerontology. He has published more than 30 papers in reputed journals.

The skeleton is a metabolically active organ that undergoes continuous remodeling throughout life. Osteoporosis, which is fostered by advancing age, is the most common clinical disorder affecting bones. Although it has been postulated that osteocytes play an important role in sensing mechanical load in bone tissues, detailed molecular mechanisms of how osteocytes regulate bone metabolism remain largely unclear.\r\n The adaptor molecule p130Cas (Crk-associated substrate, hereafter referred to as Cas), which is phosphorylated at focal adhesions upon extracellular matrix engagement, is involved in various cellular processes including migration, survival, transformation, and invasion. In addition, we reported that Cas binds to the cytoskeletons in a stretch-dependent manner. This suggests that Cas can function as an initiator of intracellular signaling cascades through force-dependent changes in the cytoskeleton network.\r\n To investigate the role of Cas in bone metabolism, we generated osteocyte-specific Cas conditional knockout (cKO) mice by mating Casflox/flox mice with Dentin matrix protein 1 (Dmp1)-Cre transgenic mice, in which the Cre recombinase gene was specifically expressed in osteocytes. The resulting Dmp1 Cre+/–;Casflox/flox mice (referred to herein as Cas cKO mice) exhibited a significant decrease in bone volume, as determined by CT analysis. Histomorphometric analysis of Cas cKO mice revealed a significant increase in the eroded surface/bone surface ratio, osteoclast surface, and osteoclast number. Furthermore, the expression levels of RANKL genes were significantly increased in the osteocyte fractions derived from Cas cKO mice. Collectively, these findings suggest that the bone loss in Cas cKO mice was caused by increased osteoclatstic bone resorption.\r\n