Frontera to receive GSA's 2015 Excellence in Rehabilitation of Aging Persons Award

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA)—the nation's largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging—has chosen Walter R. Frontera, MD, PhD, of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine as the 2015 recipient of the Excellence in Rehabilitation of Aging Persons Award.

This distinguished honor is given annually to acknowledge outstanding contributions in the field of rehabilitation. The awardee's work may be in the areas of teaching or patient care, or publications that may include scholarly works, books, monographs, administrative directives, or public policy papers.

The award presentation will take place at GSA's 68th Annual Scientific Meeting, which will be held from November 18 to 22 in Orlando, Florida. This conference is organized to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, educators, and practitioners who specialize in the study of the aging process. Visit http://www.geron.org/2015 for further details.

At the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Frontera is the inaugural chair of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, where he also serves as a professor and medical director of rehabilitation services. His research interest is the study of the basic mechanisms that underlie skeletal muscle dysfunction in older adults and in patients with chronic disease. Part of his research concerns the use of exercise to slow down and rehabilitate muscle weakness and atrophy in various populations, with a special emphasis on older adults.

From 2006 to 2011, Frontera was the dean of the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2008. He has been a member of the National Institutes of Health's Geriatrics and Rehabilitation Medicine Study Section and the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Science and Study Section, and has served on the Board of Scientific Counselors at the Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health and on the clinical consensus panel on joint replacement at the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. He has been a consultant to the National Institute of Geriatrics and the Ministry of Health in Santiago, Chile. Frontera is the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Provided by The Gerontological Society of America