Category: Senior Health News

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 12, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Being yelled at or insulted is never easy. But it’s a situation faced by about one-quarter of U.S. home health care workers, a new study finds.

Certain environments, such as caring for someone with dementia or working in a very cramped space, were linked to a higher risk of verbal abuse from patients or their kin.

“Our study found that aides frequently experience verbal abuse from the clients and their families,” said the study’s senior author, Margaret Quinn. She’s director of the Safe Home Care Project at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

FRIDAY, June 7, 2019 (HealthDay News) — People with Alzheimer’s disease who take opioid painkillers are more likely to develop pneumonia, Finnish researchers report.

The overall odds are 30% higher, especially in the first two months of use, the researchers found. And the risk is highest for those taking strong opioids such as oxycodone or fentanyl.

However, pneumonia risk also rose among Alzheimer’s patients who took milder opioids, according to the team from the University of Eastern Finland.

Why might this be?

WEDNESDAY, June 5, 2019 (HealthDay News) — If someone you know is struggling to keep track of their finances as they age, early dementia might be the culprit.

That’s the conclusion of researchers who tested 243 adults, aged 55 to 90, on their financial skills and performed brain scans to assess the buildup of beta-amyloid plaques, which are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Some of the participants had no mental decline, some had mild memory impairment and some had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

WEDNESDAY, May 29, 2019 (HealthDay News) — New research delivers fresh hope for everyone who struggles with a fading memory: Neurons continue to form well into old age, even in people with mental impairments or Alzheimer’s disease.

“We found that there was active neurogenesis [new neurons forming] in the hippocampus of older adults well into their 90s,” said study author Orly Lazarov, a professor of anatomy and cell biology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“The interesting thing is that we also saw some new neurons in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive [thinking] impairment,” she added in a university news release.

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 29, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Here’s another reason to keep your cholesterol under control: New research suggests that LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol may play a role in the development of early-onset Alzheimer’s.

A rare form of the disease that occurs before the age of 65, early-onset Alzheimer’s has previously been linked to a gene mutation involved in how the body processes fats and cholesterol. But that mutation only accounts for a small percentage of cases, the scientists noted.

THURSDAY, May 16, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Mornings spent figuring out Sudoku or finessing a crossword could spell better health for aging brains, researchers say.

In a study of over 19,000 British adults aged 50 and over who were tracked for 25 years, the habit of doing word or number puzzles seemed to help keep minds nimble over time.

“We’ve found that the more regularly people engage with puzzles such as crosswords and Sudoku, the sharper their performance is across a range of tasks assessing memory, attention and reasoning,” said research leader Dr. Anne Corbett, of the University of Exeter Medical School.

WEDNESDAY, May 15, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, watching your blood pressure, avoiding tobacco and limiting alcohol intake can reduce your risk of dementia, according to World Health Organization guidelines released Tuesday.

The WHO also cautioned against taking dietary supplements such as Vitamins B and E in an attempt to prevent mental decline and dementia, CNN reported.

Dementia affects 50 million people worldwide and there is no effective treatment.

FRIDAY, May 10, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Cuddler the bear, Aibo the dog, Justocat the purring kitty: They may only be furry, lifelike robots, but they have a made a real impact in nursing homes.

That’s the finding of new British research that suggests these high-tech “robopets” are the next best thing for nursing home residents unable to have a beloved pet or those suffering from loneliness.

“Although not every … resident may choose to interact with robopets, for those who do, they appear to offer many benefits,” study author Rebecca Abbott, of the University of Exeter Medical School, said in a university news release.

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

SUNDAY, May 5, 2019 (HealthDay News) — When men with prostate cancer have to take drugs that block the testosterone fueling their tumors, they can suffer a host of side effects that include impotence, bone loss, heart trouble and obesity.

But new research uncovers yet another possible downside to the treatment: These men may be at greater risk for dementia.

For any type of dementia, that risk increased 17%; for Alzheimer’s disease, it increased 23%, the researchers said.

Common side effects of so-called androgen-deprivation therapy include hot flashes, unstable mood, trouble sleeping, headaches, high blood sugar, allergic reactions and impotence.

WEDNESDAY, May 1, 2019 (HealthDay News) — With findings that might alter the path of Alzheimer’s research, scientists say misfolded forms of two proteins appear to spread through patients’ brains similar to an infection.

The findings suggest that Alzheimer’s is a “double-prion” disorder. This discovery could help lead to new treatments that focus directly on prions, according to researchers from the University of California, San Francisco.

A prion is a misshapen protein that can force other copies of that protein into the same misfolded shape and spread in the brain. It’s best known for its role in bovine spongiform encephalopathy — “mad cow” disease — and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a degenerative brain disorder.