Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
How Alzheimer’s Disease Alters Lives (USA Today)
How an Alzheimer’s caretaker’s life and challenges may evolve as their loved one’s disease progresses:
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.
* May need to take over some household [...]
Staying Healthy Means An Active Sex Life Too! (The Washington Post)
Here’s another reason to try to stay healthy: It extends your sex life as you age, according to a new study.
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 [...]
How The Healthcare Overhaul Affects Medicare (Reuters)
The sweeping healthcare overhaul the U.S. House of Representatives approved on Sunday includes about $455 billion in spending cuts for Medicare and other federal health programs over the next 10 years.
Here are some questions and answers about how the reforms will affect the Medicare healthcare program for the elderly.
WILL THE LEGISLATION CUT MEDICARE BENEFITS?
There are [...]
Companionship: 10 Reasons Older People Need Pets (US News & World Report)
Loneliness can become an unwelcome companion as we get older and can lead to depression as well as physical problems. Dogs mold their schedule and personality to you. They are never unavailable or off duty. Smaller dogs, in particular, can easily travel with you wherever you go.
Having a dog is a responsibility but needn’t be [...]
NEW STUDY: Healthy Adults Need Less Sleep As They Age (AFP)
Healthy older adults need less sleep than their younger counterparts and, even with less sleep under their nightcaps, are less likely to feel tired during the day, a study published Monday showed.
The time spent actually sleeping out of eight hours in bed declined progressively and significantly with age, the study published in SLEEP, the official [...]
Studies Link Exercise in Older Adults to Healthier Aging (Time)
We all know that exercise is good for you. Staying physically active helps keep your heart healthy and your muscles strong, and in cancer patients it has even been shown to ward off relapse. Now a series of independently conducted studies on the effects of exercise in healthy older adults, published on Monday in the [...]
Americans May Be Turning The Corner On Obesity (Los Angeles Times)
The assessments from the CDC indicate that Americans may have turned a corner in fighting weight problems. But health experts say there’s more to be done to reverse the trend.
Americans may not be collectively doomed to die in their recliners after all, one hand in the chips bag, the other stretching for the remote. Obesity [...]
Health Care Bill Update: Closing The Medicare ‘Doughnut Hole’ Will Actually Cost Seniors (Washington Post)
Six years after Congress added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, Democrats in the House and Senate are poised to make a central change that they and most older Americans have wanted all along: getting rid of a quirk that forces millions of elderly patients with especially high expenses for medicine to pay for much [...]
The Secrets of Weight Loss and Physical Health
When I started teaching aerobics classes in college, I mostly taught the then-popular typical classes of Step, Double Step, Hi/Lo Impact, Body Sculpting and Abdominal classes. But after college, when I taught for Bally’s Total Fitness, I started teaching a class called Body Pump.
Body Pump went beyond body sculpting and incorporated strength training with [...]
Seniors Have Real Concerns Over Proposed Cuts In Medicare To Pay For New Program
Senator Bill Nelson of Florida desperately wants to expand health insurance coverage because one in five Floridians is uninsured. As a former state insurance commissioner, he wants to crack down on insurers. And as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, he can shape legislation to achieve both goals.
But Mr. Nelson, a Democrat, has a [...]
