Eldercare, Aging and Long Term Care

At the End of Life, a Delicate Calculus - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com.

On Tuesday, Washington state joined Oregon as the second in the nation where physicians are allowed to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill men and women who want to hasten their own deaths. But the remedies available to suffering patients have expanded dramatically in the 11 years since the Oregon measure took effect, one expert recently noted, and the question of whether doctors should help patients die is far more nuanced than it once was.

Medical News: Depressed Patients Have Dysfunctional Pain-Processing Network - in Psychiatry, Depression from MedPage Today.

During exposure to a painful heat stimulus, depressed patients had decreased activity in the area of the brain responsible for pain modulation, Irina Strigo, Ph.D., of the University of California San Diego, and colleagues reported in the November issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

Study: Good oral hygiene reduces risk of pneumonia in nursing home residents - McKnight's Long Term Care News.

Good oral hygiene can help prevent pneumonia, a leading cause of death among nursing home residents, according to a recent study.

Medical News: Physical Exertion May Mask Toll on Health from Caregiving - in Geriatrics, 

Physical activity may protect older adults from some negative health effects of caregiving, researchers found. Action Points   Explain to interested patients that the study found negative health effects from caregiving among older adults. Explain that physical activity improves health outcomes for all ages, including older caregivers. Note that the study could not determine the level of stress caregivers experienced or what their caregiving activities included. Increased rates of mortality and loss of mobility among caregivers were mediated by physical activity across most race and gender groups, reported Lisa Fredman, Ph.D., of Boston University, and colleagues in the Oct. 27 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

10 Things to Know About Assisted Living - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com.

Assisted living, a popular solution for elderly people who cannot live independently, is a “myth,” Dr. Woodson said, “a place for people who don’t exist.” Families often believe these facilities will meet all of their loved ones’ needs, enabling caregivers to focus on jobs and family, only to find this isn’t the case. 

Before long, the elderly resident will require more than “meals you don’t have to cook, grass you don’t have to cut and socialization,” Dr. Woodson said. At that point the elderly resident is in trouble, since assisted living facilities are not permitted by law to provide medical care and consider it to be the family’s responsibility.

The Immediate Cause of Death - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the leading causes of death among those ages 65 and over are, in descending order, heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza, kidney disease, accidents and infection. 

Maybe so. But that’s because people are not allowed to die of old age — at least, old age cannot be listed as the cause of death on the official documents, according to both the CDC and the World Health Organization, repositories of the world’s mortality statistics.

Medical News: Heart Failure Linked to Higher Hip Fracture Risk     

Patients ages 65 and older who presented to an emergency room for heart failure were four times more likely to suffer a fracture over the next year than patients with other cardiovascular diseases (OR 4.0, 95% CI 3.0 to 5.2), Justin Ezekowitz, M.B.B.Ch., of the University of Alberta here, and colleagues reported online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The risk of hip fracture specifically was increased 6.3-fold (95% CI 3.4 to 11.8).

Medical News: Strokes Milder and Less Impairing for the Physically Active - in Cardiovascular

Regular exercise may help prevent stroke and its consequences for older adults, researchers here found

Medical News: Education and Employment May Offer Alzheimer Protection

More education and mentally challenging employment appear to protect against the cognitive impairment of Alzheimer's disease, researchers here said.

Medical News: Trouble Sleeping Linked to Memory Problems in Older Black Patients - in Primary Care, Geriatrics from MedPage Today.

If black patients 65 or older sleep poorly, they may be at higher risk of having memory problems, researchers reported here. African-Americans ages 65 to 90 who reported trouble falling asleep did worse on tests of short-term and working memory than those who nodded off more quickly, Alyssa A. Gamaldo, a Ph.D. candidate at North Carolina State University, and colleagues reported in the November issue of Research on Aging.