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.

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 no cuts to the traditional Medicare benefit. The lion’s share of spending cuts are in Medicare Advantage — a program that uses private firms such as Humana and UnitedHealth Group to deliver Medicare benefits. Many of these providers offer extra coverage and some of those extras could be dropped as Medicare Advantage subsidies are bought more in line with the cost of traditional Medicare benefits. Medicare Advantage payment rates will be frozen in 2011 and then gradually reduced giving companies time to adjust to the changes.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR REUTERS:

Q+A: How does healthcare overhaul affect Medicare? | Reuters.

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.

The time spent actually sleeping out of eight hours in bed declined progressively and significantly with age, the study published in SLEEP, the official journal of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society, said.

Older adults, aged 66-83, slept about 20 minutes less than middle-aged adults (40-55 years), who slept 23 minutes less than young adults aged 20-30, the study said.

The older adults woke up significantly more often and spent more time awake after initial sleep onset than younger adults.

Deep, or slow-wave sleep, thought to be the most restorative phase of sleep, decreased with age, the study said.

But although older adults slept less deeply and less overall, and their sleep was less continuous than their younger counterparts, they also showed less need for a quick kip during the day.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR AFP: Healthy adults need less sleep as they age: study – Yahoo! News.

In one surprising trial, researchers led by Dr. Teresa Liu-Ambrose at the University of British Columbia randomly assigned 155 aging women to three separate groups and directly compared the cognitive effects of two types of exercise: resistance training, done once or twice weekly, in which participants worked out with free weights and weight machines and did squats and lunges, versus toning and balance exercises, which participants did twice a week.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR TIME: Studies Link Exercise in Older Adults to Healthier Aging – TIME.

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 levels seem to be leveling off or slowing across most of the population, according to two new comprehensive studies of the nation’s heft.

The assessments, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are a welcome respite from the seemingly endless reports of Americans getting fatter and fatter. The latest of several to find an obesity plateau, they suggest that those earlier findings were not aberrations but that Americans may truly have turned a corner.

But it’s not time to reach for the cookie jar yet. Though abundant messages about eating smaller portions and getting regular exercise may finally be registering, health experts say there’s more to be done before the fattening trend is not merely halted but reversed — more policy changes, community programs and support groups.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES: U.S. obesity rates reaching a resting point, studies show – latimes.com.

The closing of an unusual gap in Medicare drug coverage — a gap that Republicans had, when they controlled Capitol Hill and the White House, insisted was needed for the government to be able to afford the program — would “forever end this indefensible injustice for American’s seniors,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in announcing that the Senate would join the House in supporting the change.

But details of the change underscore that, for patients and the federal budget alike, the implications of the sprawling health-care bills pushed through by congressional Democrats are more nuanced than lawmakers’ talking points.

The Democrats and President Obama have been clear that the “doughnut hole,” as the gap is known, would disappear gradually over the next 10 years. They have not mentioned that Medicare patients would, according to House figures, face a slightly larger hole in coverage during two of the next three years than they do today.

Proponents say the government can afford to eliminate the gap because the pharmaceutical industry would pay for the phaseout. But less than half of the $80 billion that drugmakers agreed to provide, under a health-care reform agreement over the summer with Senate Democrats and the White House, would be used to help fill the gap, according to Senate Democratic aides. Moreover, there are no budget forecasts far enough into the future to show how much the expanded drug benefit would cost the government once the gap is fully closed.

The not-so-sweet side of closing ‘doughnut hole’ – washingtonpost.com.

Body Pump went beyond body sculpting and incorporated strength training with REAL weights (we actually used barbells, not dumbbells). It would involve a circuit of exercises that would target all major muscle groups for a full hour. This was when my love affair with weight training began. After teaching the class for a couple of months, I started to see my body transform into a leaner, more sculpted one. I fell in love with the muscles I developed and felt sexier and stronger. Today, although I’m not teaching anymore, weight training is core to my exercise regimen.

When I see women and men running endlessly on the treadmill and then complain that they don’t look the way they want, the first thing I tell them is that they are overdoing the cardio and should stop running so much! It is a myth that cardio is the best way to lose weight and to maintain a healthy weight. Here is why strength training is the secret weapon to weight loss and overall health:

1. Increases Lean Body Mass: Strength training helps to keep our body fat to lean body mass ratio lower. This means we look better and feel stronger. But even more importantly, it impacts our metabolism…the speed at which we burn calories.

2. Increases Your Metabolism: Average adults see a 2% – 5% reduction in metabolic rate every 10 years. This makes it more and more difficult to keep unwanted weight off. As we mentioned above, however, strength training increases muscle mass which makes your muscles stronger. Stronger muscles, in turn, take up and burn blood sugar more efficiently and for a longer period of time than does cardio.

3. Reduces Risk of Injury: Strength training increases muscular and bone strength, and also improves function of tendons, joints and ligaments. All of this increased strength in your musculoskeletal system enhances your balance, flexibility and functional ability. This leads to a decreased chance of sustaining an injury that can be painful, debilitating and costly.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS, CLICK THIS LINK FOR HEALTHY LIVING: The Secret Weapon of Weight Loss and Physical Health | Healthy Living on Sheer Balance.

But Mr. Nelson, a Democrat, has a big problem. The bill taken up this week by the committee would cut Medicare payments to insurance companies that care for more than 10 million older Americans, including nearly one million in Florida. The program, known as Medicare Advantage, is popular because it offers extra benefits, including vision and dental care and even, in some cases, membership in health clubs or fitness centers.

“It would be intolerable to ask senior citizens to give up substantial health benefits they are enjoying under Medicare,” said Mr. Nelson, who has been deluged with calls and complaints from constituents. “I am offering an amendment to shield seniors from those benefit cuts.”

Similar concerns exploded into public view on Wednesday as members of the Finance Committee slogged though a mammoth health care overhaul bill for a second day.

To help offset the cost of covering the uninsured, the Senate and House bills would squeeze roughly $400 billion to $500 billion out of the projected growth in Medicare over 10 years.

Republicans on Wednesday accused Democrats of using Medicare as a piggy bank to pay for coverage of the uninsured. Democrats countered by saying they were eliminating overpayments to insurance companies and extending the life of the Medicare trust fund, which could run out of money in 2017.

Senator Nelson said Republicans were waging a “scare campaign,” but he shares some of their concerns. His predicament highlights the political risks for Democrats eager to reassure older Americans who vote in large numbers.

There are risks for President Obama as well. He cannot afford to lose Mr. Nelson’s vote. White House officials have offered to work with him to address his concerns. Mr. Obama has said repeatedly that “if you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep it.”

The cost of Mr. Nelson’s proposed fix — to preserve benefits for many people enrolled in the private Medicare plans — could total $40 billion over 10 years, and that could also be a problem for the White House. Mr. Obama has promised not to sign a health bill that increases the deficit, and so far Mr. Nelson has not said precisely how he would pay for his amendment.

Approval of the amendment could invite other Democrats to ask for similar deals that might make the bill more palatable to their constituents, but more costly as well.

The legislation moving through Congress would make other huge changes in Medicare — raising premiums for some higher-income beneficiaries, cutting payments to hospitals and nursing homes, and trimming payments for many “overvalued services” provided by doctors. The legislation includes provisions to measure the quality of care provided by doctors and hospitals and to reward those who cure patients or keep them healthy.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS STORY, CLICK THE LINK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: Senator Tries to Allay Fears on Health Overhaul – NYTimes.com.