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AAO announces launch of new online resource to improve eye care for children

The American Academy of Ophthalmology today announced the launch of a new online resource for eye physicians and surgeons dedicated solely to children's ocular diseases and disorders. The Knights Templar Eye Foundation Pediatric Ophthalmology Education Center is an important tool that enables ophthalmologists to better serve the 19 million children worldwide who suffer visual impairment. The new resource will be unveiled this week at AAO 2015, the 119th annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

12 Nov 2015

New across-the-board Medicare cuts may place many patients and providers at risk

The Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare – a coalition of home health providers dedicated to improving the integrity, quality, and efficiency of home healthcare for our nation's seniors – today warned that additional across-the-board cuts by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services made in the Final Home Health Prospective Payment System Rule for calendar year 2016 could threaten access to patient preferred, cost effective and clinically advanced care for America's home health patients, whom data show are already at significant risk.

31 Oct 2015

ACA launches national effort to eliminate anti-competitive provision of Medicare law

The American Chiropractic Association has launched a national grassroots effort to eliminate a blatantly anti-competitive provision of Medicare law that arbitrarily limits reimbursement for medically necessary services delivered by doctors of chiropractic (DCs).

30 Oct 2015

New studies raise important questions about impact of statin therapy on effectiveness of flu vaccines

A new pair of studies suggests that statins, drugs widely used to reduce cholesterol, may have a detrimental effect on the immune response to influenza vaccine and the vaccine's effectiveness at preventing serious illness in older adults. Published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, the findings, if confirmed by additional research, may have implications for flu vaccine recommendations, guidelines for statin use around the time of vaccination, and future vaccine clinical trials in seniors.

29 Oct 2015

Use of hearing aids may help safeguard memory and thinking skills in older adults

Hearing loss is linked with accelerated cognitive decline in older adults, but the use of hearing aids may help safeguard seniors' memory and thinking skills.

20 Oct 2015

New mobile phone-based navigation service developed for older people

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a mobile phone-based navigation service which guides older users to the right address, even when lost in a strange town. The result of a European project, the service helps older people to use public transport, assisting them along the entire route.

18 Oct 2015

Big data and analytics expected to play major role in Singapore’s healthcare market

Continuous data collection for chronic illness management is crucial to deliver personalized care for patients. In the era of globalization, patients still do not have the right tools to collect and share their physiological information on a frequent, real time basis.

16 Oct 2015

Alternative tobacco products pose a new challenge in the war against tobacco

The increasing use of alternative tobacco products, such as water pipes and e-cigarettes, by children under the age of 18 is a burgeoning public health crisis, researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center write in a commentary in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

14 Oct 2015

VTT, AIST partner to study how ICT-based applications improve care services for the elderly

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Japanese research institute AIST are studying how the adoption of ICT-based applications designed for the elderly will improve care service both at home and in assisted living facilities with the help of, for instance, a robot assistant.

13 Oct 2015

Getting right nutrition throughout life can help protect against osteoporosis in old age

Whether you're young or old, the right nutrition can make a difference to your bone health and influence your ability to live an independent, mobile, fracture-free life into your more senior years. That's the key message of a new scientific review published today in the journal 'Osteoporosis International' by leading bone and nutrition experts, in anticipation of World Osteoporosis Day on October 20.

6 Oct 2015

Study: Bright light therapy reduces depression and agitation in dementia sufferers

Dementia is most often associated with memory loss, but seniors who suffer from the condition also experience depression and agitation. These symptoms are often treated with medication.

29 Sep 2015

WSU awarded nearly $1 million to train social workers and nurses in SBIRT

Wayne State University has been awarded nearly $1 million to train social work and nursing students to assess patients in primary care settings for substance abuse behaviors.

24 Sep 2015

Researchers receive NIH grants to find genomic regions containing variants that affect disease risk

Six new grants from the National Institutes of Health will support researchers to develop new computational approaches for searching among millions of genomic variants to find those that make a difference in disease susceptibility or in other traits.

23 Sep 2015

Older pneumonia patients can benefit from ICU admission

When an older person gets hospitalized for pneumonia, where's the best place to care for them? New research findings about deaths and health care costs in such patients fly in the face of conventional wisdom - and could change where doctors decide to treat them.

23 Sep 2015

NCOA and award-winning actress Judith Light support national educational initiative, Flu + You

Two-time Emmy and Tony award-winning actress Judith Light and the National Council on Aging (NCOA) are teaming up for the second year on the national educational initiative Flu + You to educate older adults and those who care for them about the seriousness of influenza ("the flu"), the importance of prevention and available vaccine options.

16 Sep 2015

Honored Citizens Choice Health Plan to be renamed as Alignment Health Plan

Honored Citizens Choice Health Plan, a federally qualified Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plan serving nearly 20,000 seniors in California, will change its name to Alignment Health Plan as of October 1, 2015.

15 Sep 2015

Johns Hopkins researchers develop new resource tool to monitor trends in geriatric health services

Using data from their detailed analysis of senior medical services offered by nearly 5,000 U.S. hospitals before the 2009 passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), researchers led by a Johns Hopkins geriatrician say they have developed a Senior Care Services Scale (SCSS) that suggests a serious “mismatch” between what’s offered and what older adult populations need.

11 Sep 2015

Healthy adults who receive flu vaccination may also help protect older adults at higher risk for flu-related complications

Healthy adults who get the flu vaccine may help protect not only themselves but also older adults in their community at higher risk for serious complications from influenza, suggest findings from a new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. Based on a national sample of more than 3 million people across eight flu seasons, researchers observed that seniors were up to 21 percent less likely to be diagnosed with flu-related illness if they lived in areas where more adults under 65 were immunized.

10 Sep 2015

One in every 17 college students smokes marijuana on daily or near-daily basis

Daily marijuana use among the nation's college students is on the rise, surpassing daily cigarette smoking for the first time in 2014.

1 Sep 2015

Chapman University study provides complete analysis of skill development in traditional society

Chapman University's research on aging and skill development appears as the lead article in the latest issue of American Journal of Physical Anthropology. The study, called "Skill Ontogeny Among Tsimane Forager-Horticulturalists," provides the most complete analysis to date of skill development in a traditional society.

29 Aug 2015