Caregiving Peace of Mind for Long-Distance Caregivers By article By Marki Flannery Every Sunday, Donna placed a call from her home in Washington D.C. to her Aunt Catherine, to check up on her. At age 87, Catherine lived alone in her longtime Lower Manhattan apartment and, except for an attack of angina a couple years ago, was in relatively good health. Donna asked, as she usually did, about her aunt's weekend and was heartened to hear she had gotten out with friends. "My neighbor's daughter took us to the Metropolitan Museum," Catherine said, sounding uplifted.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Diagnosing Borderline Personality Disorder By Jane Farrell article Borderline personality disorder, a serious mental illness, affects six to ten million Americans, according to statistics from New York-Presbyterian Hospital. That’s more than twice the number of people affected by bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. And up to 90 percent of those diagnosed are women; while that may be because women seek treatment more often than men, it’s still a substantial number. Despite its prevalence, borderline personality disorder less widely known than other conditions such as depression.
_ The 12 Habits of Highly Healthy People: #1, Physical Activity By article By Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D. The Mayo Clinic has created a program modeled on the same on that Mayo Clinic employees follow. It’s called "12 Habits of Highly Healthy People." The 12 habits are: 1) Physical activity 2) Forgiveness 3) Portion size
_ Caring for Patients with Multiple Chronic Conditions By article The millions of Americans living with more than one chronic disease are at high risk of poor health outcomes, and account for a disproportionate share of health care costs. A special March supplement to Medical Carepresents updates from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Multiple Chronic Conditions (MCC) Research Network, formed to address knowledge gaps and research challenges in meeting the complex health care needs of this growing population.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Fighting Mild Forgetfulness By Jane Farrell article Editor’s note: Dementia, including Alzheimer’s, is one of the most frightening health problems, especially as we age. It cannot be prevented or cured, and it is marked by a humiliating mental decline. Because it affects primarily older people, many of us are frightened by signs of forgetfulness or memory loss. Here, the experts from the National Institute on Aging explain the issue of mild forgetfulness and how you can handle it: What is mild forgetfulness?
_ Parenting Helping Grown Kids Can Boost Mental Health By article All the negative press about “boomerang kids” aside, helping your adult children in various ways may actually be an antidote to depression as you age. That’s the finding of a team of researchers at Penn State, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan. The results are published in the February 2014 issue of The Gerontologist.
Aging Well With Age, Body Image Gets Better By article Boomers worry less about their appearance than Gen-Xers or Millenials do, according to a national online survey done by TODAY and AOL in February 2014. The results showed that 35% of Boomers aged 50 to 68 worry that people are judging their appearance, compared to 51% of Gen Xers aged 35 to 49 and 62% of millennials aged 16-34. Also, while 80% of women under age 24 worry about their appearance regularly, that number drops steadily with age. Among those who are 55+, 52% worry about appearance regularly.
_ Skin Skin Health Preventing and Treating Cellulite By article By Samira Zia Rehman When perusing through the shelves of anti-aging skin care products, you’ll probably notice that a significant number of them are dedicated to helping you get rid of cellulite. Although it isn’t harmful, cellulite is one of the most stubborn and embarrassing aesthetic issues to correct and, unfortunately, it only gets worse with age.
Reducing the Stigma of Dementia Through Song By Jane Farrell blog Having older adults with Alzheimer’s and college students sing together can change younger choir members’ perceptions of dementia and reduce social isolation, both in those with the disease and their family caregivers. These are the findings of a pilot study conducted last spring at the John Carroll University in Ohio. (The study will be published in April 2014 in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias.)
_ Vision Health Color Vision Problems as We Age By article Abnormal color vision increases significantly with aging and affects 50% or more of people in the oldest age groups, according to a study done at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco and published in the journal Optometry and Vision Science.
_ Healthy Eating After 50 By Jane Farrell article Along with all the other changes we go through as we age, food may start tasting different, according to the National Institute on Aging. Here, from the NIA experts, is why that happens and how to handle it: There are a few reasons food might be tasting differently these days: Medicines can alter the way foods taste, or even make you feel less hungry.
Men's Health Declining Happiness for Men 70+ By article Research done at Oregon State University and Boston University found that perceptions of unhappiness – or dealing with “hassles” – tends to get worse for men once they are over 70. The study was published in the journal Psychology and Aging. Reasons vary, the investigators say, but may be because of health issues, cognitive decline, or the loss of a spouse or friends.
_ Aging Well Older Women Self-Employed by Necessity By article Older women most often turn to self-employment because of financial need while older men typically choose self-employment. That is the sobering but not surprising finding of research done at the University of Missouri in Columbia. The study will be published in the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare in March 2014.
_ The Personal Records You Need to Keep By Jane Farrell article We don’t like to think about suddenly becoming seriously sick or disabled. Yet it’s extremely helpful to review what you and others need to know if that happens. To have your “affairs in order” will help your family and caregivers as well as you yourself. The federal National Institute on Aging has a list that will help you and other family members be prepared for a sudden crisis. (And if you are caregiving yourself for a family member, it might be a good idea to tactfully bring up this subject.)
Finding Ways to Detect and Treat AD By article Researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada are unraveling the mysteries of the amyloid beta peptides implicated in Alzheimer's disease. The team presented findings at the 58th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting in San Francisco from February 15th to 17th.
Vision Health Training Can Improve Vision By Sondra Forsyth article With a little practice on a computer or tablet — 25 minutes a day, four days a week, for two months — our brains can actually learn to see better. That is the encouraging finding of research done at the University of California, Riverside and published in the journal Current Biology. Although the team did the training with baseball players at the university who had normal vision, the hope is that the same training, called perceptual learning, will help people with low vision due to cataracts, macular degeneration, or amblyopia.
Aging Well As We Age, Loneliness Is a Major Health Risk By article Feeling extreme loneliness can increase an older person's chances of premature death by 14 percent. That’s the finding of a team of researchers at the University of Chicago led by by John Cacioppo.
_ Tinnitus: Loud Sounds & Hearing Loss By article A research team at the University of Leicester in the UK investigated tinnitus, a condition in which there is the perception of sound such as ringing in the ears even though there is no actual sound. The team discovered new insights into the link between the exposure to loud sounds and hearing loss associated with tinnituts. Their study, published in February 2014 in the jouranl Neuroscience, explans how damage to myelin, a protection sheet around cells, alters the transmission of auditory signals occurring during hearing loss.