A MacArthur Fellowship, often informally called a "Genius Award", is a five year grant of $500,000 given to individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work. Winners can be U.S. residents of any age, working in any field. And, no, you can't nominate yourself. You'll have to count on one of the MacArthur's Foundation's consulting experts to do that.
Every year the Foundation selects 20-25 people, many of them from the arts and --not suprisingly-- from the scientific and healthcare research fields.
One of this year's winners is Mary Tinetti, a geriatrician at Yale medical school, who has researched falls among the elderly. Rehabilitation therapists and physicians who work with seniors know that the risk of serious disability from a fall can be just as high as that caused by a stroke. But the healthcare field often regards the possibility of falling among seniors as an inevitability.
Dr. Tinetti and her colleagues have demonstrated that there are distinct factors that increase the risk of falls among the elderly — things like muscle weakness, balance problems and multiple medications. They also found that by screening for and addressing these issues, doctors can reduce seniors’ risk of falls by about 30%.
The physical therapy community has long advocated increasing activity, flexibility and strength in the elderly population as a form of prevention as well as rehabilitation. It will be interesting to see if a new focus on screening and prevention (coupled with the potential financial impact of reduced incidences of falling injuries among seniors) will affect the treatment outcomes of seniors overall.
Other grant winners in the healthcare field:Lin He - Molecular Biologist, researching the role of microRNAs in the development of cancer and laying the groundwork for future cancer treatments.
Rebecca Onie - Health Services Innovator, building a program that connects college students with health care institutions to address the link between poverty and poor health.
Jill Seaman - Infectious Disease Physician, adapting 21st-century medicine to treat infectious diseases endemic to Southern Sudan and other war-torn regions.
Learn more about the MacArthur Foundation here: Macfound.org