A group of Wii bowlers from six assisted living facilities in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, were indicted yesterday by a Federal Grand Jury on charges of Physiological Doping for the Purpose of Racketeering – a Class B felony. ”They almost pulled it off,” said Sgt. Richard Morgan of Center Valley, Pennsylvania’s Geriatric Crime Unit.
It has been conventional wisdom for a long time that loneliness in elders leads to decline in health and, possibly, early death. In June, a widely-reported, six-year study of 1600 people age 60 and older from the University of California Francisco seems to confirm that.
Seniors and their families always face a reality check when they realize how much Medicare doesn’t cover—from necessary sundries like your drug-store “cheater” reading glasses to major costs like nursing-home care. A new study in the Journal o…
No proof yet but evidence is damning: Alzheimer’s could be the most catastrophic impact of junk food.
According to a study released last week by the Mayo Clinic, having a pot belly, even if you are otherwise of normal weight, produces a 2.75 times higher risk of death than being obese.
Even the longest life can be a waste if it’s not brought to its full potential. Even the shortest life is rich and fulfilled if it’s lived well.
Read more: Longevity, Lifestyle, Health, Retirement, Living Well, Baby Boomers, Agi…
A new study by researchers at the University of California San Francisco found that older adults with sleep-disordered breathing or sleep apnea appeared to be more than twice as likely to develop dementia later in life.
Now, before you freak out let me add the caveat — the study merely found an association between sleep problems and dementia, not a direct correlation.
Useful information arrives and sometimes it appears to be so obvious or has been so widely distributed in the media that it would be redundant for me to tell you about it. But maybe not; maybe some readers want or need to know this stuff.
So instead of one at a time, I’ve collected several items together in today’s post about this year’s flu shots, swift delivery of OTC drugs, boomers and Hep C, a new kind of colonoscopy and an extremely useful new nursing home database.
Interesting news from the CDC today — they are now officially recommending all members of the Post War Generation should get a one-time test for the hepatitis C virus to help avert major increases in liver disease.
Longtime readers know that polypharmacy, or the mixing of prescription drugs, is a serious issue for older adults that we often address at ChangingAging.org. But a lesser-known problem also needs to be addressed — the danger of overdosing on common, over-the-counter medicines.
Getting older is one of life’s inescapables, although life is certainly better now for older Americans than at any other time in history. We live longer, more active lives than our parents and grandparents certainly did – today’s average 65 year-old man and woman can expect to live to be 81 and 85, respectively – and science has proven that we’re still able to learn new things, even if we don’t learn as quickly as we did in our younger years. These are all things to celebrate
Most of us oldsters would prefer to stay at home until we’re carted off. The ideal scenario: do this surrounded by loving, caring family and friends. But all too often, this set-up isn’t possible. (I’ve found a way that I think may work, which I’l…
Perhaps it’s my sensitivity to these kinds of issues, but did anyone else interpret Justin Bieber’s offhand remark about Prince Williams’ thinning hair, as a reflection of larger cultural issues?
Read more: Propecia, Cosmetic Su…
This week’s (August 10, 2012) edition of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), includes this informative graphic depicting the ten most common chronic conditions among…
Want to live a long time? Who doesn’t? Quite a number of smart people have staked their hopes for long life on restricting their calorie intake. It’s an idea that rests on a not-inconsiderable body of evidence. But some new developments suggest it may be a questionable strategy.
When my father Frank suffered a serious fall and no longer felt safe living alone in his retirement home in Mount Dora, Florida, we were lucky to have a very competent geriatric care manager on the scene. Elinor and her staff were well known to Dad.
It could be my imagination, but lately there seems to be an increase in the amount of age denial going on – particularly, an uptick in requests to review books on how to stay young forever and also, more ads…
That’s the banner headline across the cover of the September, 2012 issue of Consumer Reports. The subtitle is “How To Protect Your Family.”
Here’s the link if you want to see the full report. The parts that resonated with me are summarized b…
At last! One of my addictions may actually prolong my life, not shorten it. A study published May 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that older adults who drink coffee may be less likely than non-drinkers to die from a number of ca…
When you’re young and something starts hurting your first thought is, “Gee, when’s that going to get better?” When you’re old and something hurts you think, “Oh great, when is that going to get worse?”
Read more: Aging, Humor, E…
Dr. Bill Thomas is an international expert on elderhood and geriatric medicine. He is the founder of the Eden Alternative and Green House Project, a writer and musician. Follow Dr. Bill on Twitter and Facebook.
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