Early stage

•May notice patient is more anxious, forgets friends’ names and telephone numbers, places everyday items in the wrong storage locations, leaves projects (laundry, meals) unfinished, has trouble making change and balancing a checkbook.

•If patient’s work life is suffering, caregiver also may need to take on more financial responsibility.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO USA TODAY:  How Alzheimer’s disease alters lives, stage by stage – USATODAY.com.

Stacy Tessler Lindau and Natalia Gavrilova of the University of Chicago analyzed data about health and sexual activity collected by two nationally representative surveys. The surveys involved 3,032 adults aged 25 to 74 and 3,005 adults aged 57 to 85 between 1995 and 2006.

Men were more likely than women to be sexually active, report a good quality sex life and be interested in sex, the researchers said in a paper published online by a British medical journal called BMJ. Those gender differences increased with age and were greatest among those aged 75 to 85. In that group, nearly 39 percent of men but less than 17 percent of women were sexually active and nearly 71 percent of men and less than 51 percent of women who were sexually active reported having a good quality sex life.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR THE WASHINGTON POST:

The Checkup – Maintaining a sex life.

“Proven ways” refers to generalised results suggested by these studies and until you try each one out for yourself, it remains unproven for you as an individual.

So why not try a few and see for yourself which really lead to a happy life?
1. Believe in something

Some studies suggest that religious people are more than twice as likely as the secular to say they were “very happy”. While this in itself is not a reason to hastily adopt a religion, we may do well to believe in something. Have you ever met a happy skeptic?

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THE LINK TO JOYFUL DAYS:

Seven Proven Ways to Live A Happy Life | Joyful Days.

Having a dog is a responsibility but needn’t be taxing. The routine of caring for a pet can give structure and purpose to daily life. Maybe you don’t always want to get out of bed, but your pet wants you to, and isn’t that a good thing?

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR US NEWS: Companionship: 10 Reasons Older People Need Pets – US News & World Report.

Gamblers sink an increasing sum of money into their efforts to win. Over the last 20 years legalized betting has grown tremendously; it’s now a $100 billion industry. More than 65 percent of Americans gamble, according to Gallup’s annual Lifestyle Poll conducted last year, and up to 5 percent of those betters develop an addiction to the activity.

“For most individuals, gambling is enjoyable and harmless, but for others, it is as destructive as being addicted to drugs,” said Catharine Winstanley, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Psychology.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR MSNBC) Why do losers keep gambling? Brain to blame – Addictions- msnbc.com.

For example, buying stamps isn’t stressful, and buying a roll of stamps isn’t any more stressful than buying twenty stamps, but realizing that you’ve run out of stamps when you’ve waited to the last possible day to pay your bills is STRESSFUL.

And it seems to be a natural law that every car’s gas gauge hits “Empty” at the moment of maximum inconvenience.

As a kid, I was puzzled by the meaning of the old saying, “A stitch in time saves nine.”

Now I know what it means. And it’s a very sensible saying. It means that if you make one stitch when it’s needed, you’ll save yourself the trouble of having to make nine stitches later.

Similarly, one of the best ways to lower the stress level in your life is to discipline yourself to do the little things that will help keep stress at bay.

These tasks don’t seem particularly important, and they’re easy to skip when you’re rushed, but if neglected, they can snowball into major stress.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR HEALTHY LIVING: 20 very easy tips for lowering your daily stress level – Healthy Living on Shine.

The agency, the Eastern Los Angeles County Regional Center, informed more than 100 families late last summer that their children were losing the therapy — known as the DIR model, or “developmental, individual difference, relationship-based” — as a result of state budget cuts.

The therapy is the basis for a popular treatment known as Floortime, in which a therapist follows a child’s lead during play activities to build communication and social interaction skills.

Eliminating it “threatens to condemn our clients and this group of children to a bleak future under institutionalized care,” said Laura Faer, an attorney at the Public Counsel Law Center, which filed the suit Thursday on behalf of the families in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Last July, the state Legislature cut more than $300 million in services for the developmentally disabled, including experimental treatments, recreational activities and nonmedical therapies.

The Eastern Los Angeles Regional Center — which oversees state-funded services for the developmentally disabled from Highland Park to La Mirada — eliminated DIR because it “doesn’t meet the rigors of science,” said Gloria Wong, the executive director, who is named as a defendant in the suit.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES: Families sue over discontinued autism therapy – latimes.com.

CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THIS STORY:  Ask Dr. Manny | FOX News.

But the practice of sexting – sending nude or semi-nude images of oneself to others via mobile phones – is having unintended and, in some cases, tragic consequences.

The risk of having one’s private pictures distributed among schoolmates or uploaded on to social-networking websites is only one part of it.

It could also lead to a criminal conviction as a sex offender for any teenager who forwards them on to someone else.

Sending or distributing explicit photos of a child under 18 is, in many countries, illegal. It is also illegal to send such photos to a minor – even if both parties consent to it.

A spate of cases in the United States has seen several “sexting” teenagers arrested on charges of child pornography – alarming parents, school officials, police and prosecutors.

It has led people to ask whether threatening children with the same law that was drawn up to protect them – and potentially creating many more sex offenders – is the best way to tackle the phenomenon of “sexting”?

‘Dangerous precedent’

One such case has ended up in a court in Pennsylvania and is being closely watched by interested groups across the US.

The route to the courthouse began when several pictures of pupils in various states of undress were discovered on other pupils’ phones by staff at the local school in Tunkhannock.

The phones were handed to Wyoming County district attorney George Skumanick, who decided to act.

He had been particularly alarmed by the case of Jessica Logan, an 18-year-old from Ohio who took her own life after pictures she sent of herself to her boyfriend ended up in the hands of fellow pupils.

Mr Skumanick offered the Tunkhannock pupils in question, around 20 of them, a six-month education programme to learn more about the consequences of their actions – and to help them avoid a child pornography charge.

Three girls – and their parents – refused to sign up, and are now suing Mr Skumanick with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Mr Skumanick said he thought he was being “innovative and progressive” when he offered the youngsters the classes.

“I didn’t have to give them this opportunity. I could have just charged them,” he told the BBC.

He says the recent arrest of a man in Georgia for allegedly making internet contact with one of the pupils involved in the case justifies his concern. The man has been charged with criminal solicitation and corruption of minors.

“Our main goal was simply for the pupils to go through the programme we had developed to help them learn about the dangers of sexting,” Mr Skumanick said.

But Witold Walczak, legal director for ACLU in Pennsylvania who is fighting the case on behalf of the pupils, said the district attorney’s actions risk setting a dangerous precedent.

“Child porn is about the abuse and exploitation of minors by adults. That’s not happening here,” he said.

“The kids who do this are doing potential harm to themselves. They are both the perpetrator and the victim. Why would you want to compound that with a criminal prosecution and conviction?”

Cyber-tattoo

This is one of at least 20 prosecutions that have been undertaken or threatened in a number of US states in recent months.

But it is not just an American problem. Cases have also been reported in Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia.

The New South Wales state government in Australia launched an education campaign this month after receiving reports that girls as young as 13 were sexting.

“I urge parents to warn their children about the consequences of sexting,” state Community Services Minister Linda Burney said.

“It may be a difficult conversation but I think every parent will agree it is a very important one.”

A survey of more than 1,000 teenagers in the US last year found that around one in five 13 to 19 year olds had sent nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves either by text or online.

A third of boys and a quarter of girls said they had had nude or semi-nude images, originally meant to be private, shared with them, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies found.

Bill Albert of the Washington-based organisation says today’s generation of teenagers needs to find a line between public and private behaviour in light of the new technology.

“The line is very much more blurred than in the past. The technology is so new that people haven’t found their moral compass when using it,” he told the BBC.

“The problem is that even if you think you are sending a picture only to your boyfriend or girlfriend of the moment, it can go from private to global in a nano-second.

“And something like that can stick with you, almost like a cyber-tattoo, for the rest of your life.”

Mr Albert said that while child porn laws are “an awfully severe and blunt instrument”, alerting teenagers to the legal consequences of their actions is no bad thing.

“The teenagers in our survey were very surprised by the legal action taking place,” he said. “The legal consequences were very low on their list of concerns.”

Law changes

Parry Aftab, a leading authority on cybercrime, is campaigning for a change in the law in the US.

She says the current legal options for dealing with cases of sexting “are insane”.

She wants to see children facing a misdemeanour charge rather than child pornography – a much less serious offence that would eliminate the possibility of a teenage offender being labelled a sex offender for years.

A number of states in the US are considering this approach.

Vermont has introduced a bill that would legalise the consensual exchange of graphic images between two 13-to-18-year-olds, although passing on such images would remain a crime.

Ohio is considering a proposal that would see the practice of sexting reduced from a felony crime to a misdemeanour. Mr Skumanick would like Pennsylvania to consider something similar.

However, ensuring laws are available so that prosecutors and police can still act over sexting are vital, Ms Aftab says.

“It is dangerous behaviour that we don’t want children to be encouraged to do,” she told the BBC.

“Not only could these images end up in the hands of paedophile groups and place kids at higher risk of being targeted, but they could also be subject to extortion by those who have ended up with the images.”  Report originally filed by the BBC.  For the latest in International news, click the link below for the BBC.

Do we need tougher laws regarding ’sexting’?

via BBC NEWS | Americas | Alarm bells ring over ’sexting’.

Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers.

Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.

The ramifications of the trend are profound for the new retirees, their families, the government and other social institutions that may be called upon to help support them.

On top of savings ravaged by the stock market decline and the loss of home equity, many retirees now must make do with Social Security benefits reduced by as much as 25% if they retire at age 62 instead of 66.

“When the recession ends and the economy bounces back, there may be a band of people for whom things will never be the same again. They’ll still be paying the price for 10, 20, 30 years down the road,” said Cristina Martin Firvida, director of economic security for AARP, the nation’s largest membership organization for people 50 and older.

For Herman Hilton, 66, of Jacksonville, Fla., a lean 6-foot-2 electrician with a bushy gray beard, the decision to lay down his pliers and screwdriver was born of frustration.

For at least the last 10 years, as he wired new buildings, he was looking toward retiring as soon as he hit 66 and qualified for full benefits. And last fall, like millions of other older workers, Hilton put his “golden years” plan on hold when his 401(k) lost more than a third of its value.

Then last month, his life took another unwelcome turn: Hilton’s foreman pulled him aside to tell him that he was being laid off. For several weeks, Hilton collected unemployment insurance. But he soon decided to call it quits and file for Social Security.

“I can live on what I have,” Hilton said. “But it’s not what I planned on. I won’t have the comfort factor of as much of a safety cushion.”

That cushion is important. As Americans live longer, the elderly are increasingly at risk of outlasting their financial assets. That’s a serious problem for them and their families, who are often called upon to provide assistance.

Because benefits are reduced for people who retire early, the surge in retirements should not have any long-term effect on the solvency of the Social Security system, although it will probably add to the near-term budget deficits confronting the Obama administration, Social Security’s Goss said.

The full consequences of retirement decisions made in hard times will become apparent when people who retired early begin to exhaust their savings.

“As they get into their 70s and 80s, it will be increasingly inadequate,” said Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

The most severe effect will probably fall on the unemployed widows of workers who retire early, Munnell said. Survivors’ benefits also take a deeper cut when people retire early — reduced as much as 30% for retirement at 62. Because women tend to live longer than men, that leaves them more vulnerable to running out of money as expenses for assisted living and other costs rise in advanced old age.

Significant numbers of workers have long chosen to retire early. In 2007, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 42% of men and 48% of women began collecting Social Security retirement benefits at age 62, the first year of eligibility.

The current recession, the worst since the Depression, is striking when older workers are by historical standards unusually vulnerable. Though older workers in previous recessions were less likely than their younger counterparts to be laid off, that advantage has eroded in recent years, said Munnell, who analyzed more than two decades of Labor Department data on layoffs.

Fewer workers are now protected by union contracts that require newer employees to be laid off first. And older workers now typically have less of a seniority advantage in a workforce that more frequently switches jobs.

Once they lose their jobs, older workers have a harder time finding new ones. On average, it takes laid-off workers 55 and older nearly a month longer than their younger counterparts to find new employment, and the gulf has been growing recently, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Goss said it was theoretically possible that people who claimed retirement benefits during the recession would resume working once the economy improves.

Yet experience suggests that retired workers are unlikely to return to work in large numbers, particularly not to full-time jobs that would allow them to make up their earnings losses while they were out of the workforce, said Paul N. Van de Water, a former senior policy official at the Social Security Administration and now a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank.

“It’s partly a question of intent,” Van de Water said. “It’s partly a question of your skills not being kept up to date.” Article by Mike Dorning for the Los Angeles Times. For more information and news, click the link below for the www.latimes.com. Support your local newspaper and the Los Angeles Times.

Our you planning to retire early? Please share your story.

Early retirement claims increase dramatically – Los Angeles Times.