Eldercare, Aging and Long Term Care

The Associated Press: Study: Stockings for stroke patients don't work.

Special stockings commonly given to stroke patients to prevent blood clots don't work, a new study reported Wednesday. Doctors often prescribe the tight, thigh-high stockings to patients who have suffered a stroke, seeking to prevent blood clots in patients' legs — which could prove fatal if they break off and reach the heart or lungs. About two-thirds of stroke patients can't walk when admitted to hospital, and up to 20 percent of those patients develop a blood clot in their legs. The stockings squash the legs and force the blood to circulate better, and can be used in place of, or alongside, anti-clotting drugs like heparin. But in a study of more than 2,500 stroke patients in Australia, Britain and Italy, doctors found the stockings did nothing to reduce the chances of a clot. Not only that, but they caused problems like skin ulcers and blisters. The results were simultaneously published in the Lancet medical journal and presented at the European Stroke Conference in Stockholm on Wednesday.

Elderly women with 'dowager's hump' may be at higher risk of earlier death.

Hyperkyphosis, or "dowager's hump" — the exaggerated forward curvature of the upper spine seen commonly in elderly women — may predict earlier death in women whether or not they have vertebral osteoporosis, UCLA researchers have found. In a study published in the May 19 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers found that older white women with both vertebral fractures and the increased spinal curvature that results in the bent-over posture characteristic of hyperkyphosis had an elevated risk for earlier death. The finding was independent of other factors that included age and underlying spinal osteoporosis. Women who had only hyperkyphosis, without vertebral fractures, did not show an increased risk for premature death. Hyperkyphosis can be caused by a number of factors besides osteoporosis, including habitual poor posture and degenerative diseases of the muscles and intervertebral discs. "Just being bent forward may be an important clinical finding that should serve as a trigger to seek medical evaluation for possible spinal osteoporosis, as vertebral fractures more often than not are a silent disease," said Dr. Deborah Kado, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery and medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the study's primary investigator. "We demonstrated that having this age-relate

Survey suggests higher risk of falls due to dizziness in middle-aged and older Americans.

A full third of American adults, 69 million men and women over age 40, are up to 12 times more likely to have a serious fall because they have some form of inner-ear dysfunction that throws them off balance and makes them dizzy, according to Johns Hopkins experts. Among the other key findings of the three-year survey and study on the subject by the Johns Hopkins team are that a third of this group, or more than 22 million, were unaware of their vulnerability, having had no previous incidents of disequilibrium or sudden falls to suggest that anything was wrong. In the survey, to be published in the Archives of Internal Medicine online May 25, these asymptomatic people were three times more likely to suffer a potentially fatal fall than people with a healthy sense of balance, whereas people already experiencing symptoms of imbalance had a 12-fold increase in risk. Accidental falls are among the leading causes of death in the elderly, killing an estimated 13,000 seniors each year in the United States and resulting in more than one and a half million visits to hospital emergency rooms, experts say. "Vestibular imbalances need to be taken seriously because falls can be fatal and injuries can be painful, lead to long hospital stays and result in significant loss in quality of life," says Llo

Weight loss in old age may signal dementia.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A new study shows that older people who are thinner or are losing weight quickly are at a higher risk of developing dementia, especially if they started out overweight or obese. The research is published in the May 19, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. For the study, researchers followed for eight years 1,836 Japanese Americans in Washington state with an average age of 72. During that time, 129 people developed dementia. The research found that people with lower body mass index (BMI) scores at the beginning of the study were 79 percent more likely to develop dementia than those with higher BMI scores. In addition, those who lost weight over the study period at a faster rate were nearly three times more likely to develop dementia than those who lost weight more slowly over time. This result was more pronounced in those who were overweight or obese to start; those with a BMI of 23 or higher had an 82-percent reduced risk of developing the disease compared to those who were normal or underweight. The results were the same after testing for other health risk factors such as smoking, exercise and gender. "Our finding suggests that losing weight quickly in older age may be an early sign of dementia," said study author Tiffany Hughes, PhD, M

When the Hospital Says ‘So Long’ - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com.

“You don’t have to accept it if they say [the patient] has to leave the hospital in the next hour,” said Susan Reinhard, senior vice president for public policy at AARP. (Indeed, hospitals are required to give Medicare patients at least 24 hour notice before discharge.) “Families have a right to say, `I need more information. I don’t know what I’m doing,’” Ms. Reinhard added. Doing so early in the process gives the discharge planner more leeway to set up services or find alternative plans

Vitamins Found to Curb Exercise Benefits - NYTimes.com.

“If you exercise to promote health, you shouldn’t take large amounts of antioxidants,” Dr. Ristow said. A second message of the study, he said, “is that antioxidants in general cause certain effects that inhibit otherwise positive effects of exercise, dieting and other interventions.” The findings appear in this week’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The effect of vitamins on exercise and glucose metabolism “is really quite significant,” said Dr. C. Ronald Kahn of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, a co-author of the report. “If people are trying to exercise, this is blocking the effects of insulin on the metabolic response.”

Mealtime interaction encourages hospitalized seniors to eat more.

Research has shown that a majority of patients suffer from nutritional deterioration during hospitalization. "Approximately 35 percent of elderly people suffer from malnutrition," says Marie-Jeanne Kergoat. "That's a scary estimate when we consider that nutrition tends to deteriorate during hospitalization." St-Arnaud McKenzie observed some 30 patients during mealtimes at the re-adaptation unit of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (IUGM), which is affiliated to the Université de Montréal. Using an evaluation grid, she measured their verbal and non-verbal behaviors. By observing these patients at mealtimes she calculated the level of conviviality. She then measured food intake by looking at the quantity of food leftover after the meal. Results were clear – there was a correlation between food intake and social interaction. What's more, patients ate more when social interactions were friendly and lively. The research team also found that nutritional deficiencies mostly occur when patients eat alone in their rooms.

Experts Warn Against Long-Term Use of Common Pain Pills - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com.

Last week, an expert panel of American Geriatrics Society pretty much bumped all non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, off the list of medicines recommended for adults ages 75 and older with chronic, persistent pain. Long-term use of drugs like ibuprofen, naproxen and high-dose aspirin is so dangerous, the panelists said, that elderly people who can’t get relief from alternatives like acetaminophen may be better off taking opiates, like codeine or even morphine.

Dad's mental health affects children too | Health | Reuters .

Fathers' mental health problems may take a toll on their children's psychological well-being, particularly that of their sons, a new research review suggests. The review, published online by The Lancet medical journal, found that when fathers had psychiatric conditions like major depression, drug or alcohol addiction, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), their children were at increased risk of mental health problems.

Combined dietary factors impact AMD risk; study finds glaucoma care cost-effective.

A diet that includes key nutrients and low-glycemic index foods is likely to reduce risks for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to the first study to analyze these factors in combination. Chung-Jung Chiu, PhD, of the Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research, Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, led this new analysis of Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) data. The study team included AREDS researchers and was funded in part by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Earlier studies—including AREDS and the Nutrition and Vision Project of the Nurses’ Health Study—had revealed the AMD-protective effects of several nutrients and of a low-glycemic index (GI) diet, but Chiu’s study is the first to associate specific food intake patterns with substantial AMD risk reductions.