A company that makes emergency alert devices has been ordered by the Maryland attorney general to stop operating for defrauding the elderly.

 Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said today that his office has issued a cease and desist order against Medical Alert Buyers Alliance Corp, a business owned by Glenn Chumley of Odenton.

The state accused Chumley of preying on elderly consumers by selling them emergency alert devices and one-year service plans, but then not responding when they needed help. The devices were supposed to connect people with an emergency alert center if they fell or had other medical emergencies.

According to the charges, Chumley and his company entered into contracts with more than 1,000 customers promising to help them. After going more than $100,000 in debt with a vendor, the company stopped providing the emergency alert services even though consumers had already paid for them.

When consumers pressed the buttons on their emergency alert devices, nobody responded. One consumer told state officials that his elderly mother pressed her emergency alert device when she fell and broke her shoulder, but nobody replied. Another consumer described waiting for hours to get help after she could not reach anyone using the emergency alert device purchased from Chumley.

The state also accuses Chumley of continung to bill consumers for emergency services he did not provide, making unauthorized charges on consumers' credit cards and failing to honor warranties and guaranties made to his customers.

The state has ordered Chumley and his business to return any payments they received without customers' authorization or for services they did not provide. The company has also been ordered to stop selling emergency alert services to consumers unless they post a $20,000 bond or other security with the attorney general's office and provide the services they sell.

Posted by Andrea Walker at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: geriatrics
        

Today we welcome guest blogger Hanah Cho, a business reporter at The Sun. She attended the Gerontological Society of America conference as a 2011-2012 Metlife Foundation Journalists in Aging Fellows Program, a project of GSA and New America. She tell us how to live well into old age.

Meet Saburo Shochi.

He is 105.

His lifespan is a remarkable feat considering the average life expectancy for the U.S. population is 77.9, according to the U.S. Census.

I met Shochi at The Gerontological Society of America conference in Boston this past weekend, where he was sharing his life story as well as his daily routine for maintaining good health. Listening to gerontologists and researchers who study centenarians, I was struck by how many of us can reach the mid-80s by maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Based on studies, gerontologists believe that about 70 percent of our lifespan is due to the environment or nature, while the remaining 30 percent is genes, said Dr. Thomas T. Perls, director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University School of Medicine. Perls points to a results from a study of Seventh Day Adventists at Loma Linda University in California – which found that the group has the highest life expectancy of 88 years old.

Their healthy lifestyle is mostly dictated by their religion, which prohibits Seventh Adventists from drinking and smoking. They also exercise regularly, eat in moderation and many are vegetarians, Perls said. Seventh Adventists also have a strong social network of family and friends that may help them manage stress well, Perls added.

“They’re living about six to seven years more than the rest of us. Clearly the reasons are the healthy behaviors,” Perls said. “That says to me everyone in the room has the opportunity to get to 86 as men and 89 as women.”

Here is where nature vs. nurture gets trickier.

“To live an additional 10 or even 20 years beyond age 90 is when we see the growing importance of genetic variance,” Perls said.

That’s why Perls and other researchers study centenarians so that they could identify and better understand genetic – and lifestyle -- factors associated with what gerontologists call exceptional longevity.

Perhaps one of the best-known groups of centenarians is the elderly Okinawans. Dr. Bradley Willcox, one of the lead researchers of the Okinawa Centenarian Study, says both “genetic and nutritional factors act together” to contribute to their longevity.

 “One of the reason they live so long is they’re a naturally caloric restricted population,” Willcox said. Older Okinawans’ diet consists of mostly vegetables, tofu and lots of sweet potato for “optimal nutrition,” Willcox said.

Besides eating well, researchers have found other lifestyle commonalities among centenarians: They include exercising or maintaining an active lifestyle; having a strong social network; and having the right outlook or life purpose.

 Dr. Shochi’s routine for his good health follows a similar path. He exercises regularly using a baton. He keeps his mind sharp by keeping a diary in a foreign language as well as learning other language via a radio course. He also chews each mouthful of food 30 times, a practice he learned from his mother. He also follows two additional steps: Rubs down his body with a cold wet towel and sleeps in a special hard mattress.

Shochi continues to travel around the world so that he could share his knowledge and learn from others, Taketoshi Koga, one of his traveling companions, said through a Japanese interpreter.

 For additional information resources, check out National Geographic writer Dan Buettner’s research on five Blue Zones, or communities around the globe that have the world’s highest life expectancy.

Also check out The Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator, which uses the medical and scientific data to estimate your lifespan.

Posted by Andrea Walker at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: geriatrics
        

Seniors end up in the emergency room for falls more than any other type of injury, so to raise awareness, Maryland has designated this week Fall Prevention Awareness Week.

State data shows that each day in 2009, 78 seniors in the state were treated in an emergency department for a fall. Another 42 were hospitalized, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Just the hospitalizations cost more than $130 million.

The state plans to use money from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the next five years to offer programs for seniors. The money will go to local health departments and other agencies to implement fall prevention programs.

Improving balance and coordination through Tai Chi and a course called Stepping-on are proven to reduce falls, officials said. 

Officials also said there are basic steps all seniors can take to reduce risk of falling: Begin a regular exercise program, have your doctor review your medicine because some combinations can cause sleepiness or dizziness, have your vision checked because poor vision can cause you to fall and make your home safer by moving items out of the way and installing grab bars.

For more information on preventing falls, call the state’s Center for Health Promotion and Education at 410-767-6779 or go to FALLS.

File photo from McClatchy-Tribune

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: geriatrics
        

Doctors always say that if you don’t smoke, eat well, exercise regularly and limit alcohol you’ll live longer. Now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has put an actual statistic behind that advice.

A new study shows that those who engage in all four healthy behaviours were 63 percent less likely to die early, compared to those who did none of those things. Not smoking was the most protective, the CDC said.

“If you want to lead a longer life and feel better, you should adopt healthy behaviors– not smoking, getting regular physical activity, eating healthy, and avoiding excessive alcohol use,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, CDC director, said in a statement. The alcohol limited was two drinks a day for men and one for women.

Specifically, those who did all four healthy things were:

+66 percent less likely to die early from cancer,
+65 percent less likely to die early from cardiovascular disease and
+57 percent less likely to die early from other causes.

Researchers looked at data from the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey who were recruited from 1988 to 1994 and followed until 2006. The study, called Low Risk Lifestyle Behaviors and All-Cause Mortality: Findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III Mortality Study, was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The study showed only a small percentage of U.S. adults has adopted such a healthy lifestyle. But the CDC pointed out that significant progress has been made on smoking.

Baltimore Sun file photo/Amy Davis

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health, Consumer health, Healthy Living, geriatrics
        

With all the political chatter, are you struggling with what actually is changing with Medicare because of the health care reform law signed last year?

Consumer Reports is offering a free guide called “Medicare: 6 Thing You Need to Know Now.” Call 1-855-CR-GUIDE or click here to download a copy. 

“This guide will help people navigate the changes in Medicare and take full advantage of new services available under the law,” Jim Guest, president of Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, said in a statement.

The guide is 15 pages and includes information on drug discounts and free health screenings for wellness, mammograms and prostate cancer. It also includes information on annual out-of-pocket costs and changes for those with higher incomes. There’s also information on enrollment dates and contact information in each state for when you have questions.

If you're looking for the government's website on health care reform, click here.

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: geriatrics
        

Muscle atrophy in older people is a big problem, but a common blood pressure drug shows promise in regenerating muscle and also in protecting against its wasting away from inactivity.

The drug, losartan, worked on geriatric mice muscle and tests on humans are in the works.

“The goal of the investigation was to find a way to prevent a bad situation from getting worse in the case of old muscle that's injured or not used,” said Dr. Ronald Cohn, an assistant professor of pediatrics and neurology in Hopkins’s McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine. “As pleased as we were to see that losartan therapy in mice had a positive effect on muscle regeneration, we were most surprised and excited by its striking prevention of disuse atrophy.”

Seniors can have muscle loss and weakness, called sarcopenia, from inactivity, injury or illness. As people age, other studies have shown that activity in a certain protein increases and that means less muscle repair. Losartan promotes muscle regeneration by blocking a protein receptor and tamping down the activity.

There hasn’t been a lot of other attention to this condition, with research more focused on preservation of bone. This research was reported in the May 11 journal Science Translational Medicine.

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: geriatrics
        

Nearly two-thirds of adults 70 and older have hearing loss, according to a new study by researchers from Johns Hopkins and the National Institute on Aging.

While the rate is climbing for older adults as a whole, African-Americans appear to have less risk of developing hearing loss, researchers found. The reasons why, however, remain unknown.

Researchers say their study offers a sweeping look at a condition that is often underreported. Most people think of hearing loss in the elderly as a minor health issue, but researchers are beginning to find links between hearing loss and such conditions as dementia, cognitive decline and physical health problems.

The findings, published online this week in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, come from an analysis of a national survey from 2005-2006. Of 717 people aged 70 or older in the study, 63 percent had hearing loss, ranging from mind to severe, researchers found. Despite that relatively large number, only about one-fifth of adults with hearing loss use hearing aids, the authors write.

When researchers broke down their findings by race, they found about 64 percent of white participants had hearing loss, while that figure was 43 percent for blacks. Even after they accounted for factors such as previous noise exposure, which is associated with hearing loss, they found blacks in the study had about a third of the chance of having hearing loss compared to whites.

As with most racial disparities in health care, researchers aren't sure why there may be a racial difference in hearing loss. They suggested that pigment produced by cells in the skin and the inner ear might help protect the ear, but they aren't sure. Clearly, the issue needs more study as this was a small survey.  

Continue reading "Hearing loss in older adults on the rise" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: geriatrics
        

New research is connecting seniors’ hearing loss with development of dementia, a finding that could lead to new ways to help stave off the memory decline.

The study by Johns Hopkins and the National Institute on Aging didn’t determine the cause of the link – perhaps there is a common pathology or the risk increases as the strain of decoding sounds overwhelms the brains of people with hearing loss or as those who can’t hear become more socially isolated.

The finding could help determine or push interventions, such as hearing aids.

“Researchers have looked at what affects hearing loss, but few have looked at how hearing loss affects cognitive brain function,” study leader Dr. Frank Lin, assistant professor in Hopkins' Division of Otology, said in a statement.

“There hasn't been much crosstalk between otologists and geriatricians, so it's been unclear whether hearing loss and dementia are related.”

For the study, published in the February Archives of Neurology, the researchers used data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging, which was initiated by the National Institute on Aging in 1958 to track various health factors over time.

They focused on 639 people whose cognitive abilities were tested between 1990 and 1994 and again every one to two years until 2008. Those with the most hearing loss had the highest likelihood of developing dementia.

Baltimore Sun file photo of a hearing aid/Lloyd Fox

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: geriatrics
        

Early diagnosis is best in most medical cases. That’s certainly true for dementia, doctors say. And some researchers at Johns Hopkins have found an online tool can help seniors determine whether they should seek a more thorough evaluation from their physicians for the malady.

The tool, which is still being refined, doesn’t diagnose. It lets the seniors know if they are at risk and should get a physical exam, blood work and images.

“As the population ages and dementia becomes more prevalent, it's important to get people diagnosed early,” says Jason Brandt, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a statement.  “Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia don't just creep up on you. They're incubating for decades in the brain. This tool is potentially very useful in determining who is at risk.”

The Dementia Risk Assessment asks questions about a person’s risk factors for dementia, including whether the person has a history of high blood pressure, depression, diabetes, high cholesterol or head injury. The tool also offers a simple memory test, said Brandt, the leader of the study that appears online in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia.

The study looked at responses from 357 people over age 50 who took the assessment at  alzcast.org. The assessment takes about five to 10 minutes, and Brandt says it separates those who are really at risk verses common forgetfulness that creeps up on older people. Those are people, for example, who just can’t remember where they put the keys.

There are methods to slow cognitive decline or even restore brain function with some forms of dementia. Though, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease.

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: geriatrics
        

A Johns Hopkins doctor took a look at primary care programs that treat older patients with chronic conditions and found three models that seem to be the best for providing care while reducing, or not increasing, costs.

The study by Dr. Chad Boult, of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, appears today in a issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association that focuses on aging.

“Older patients with multiple chronic health conditions and complex health care needs often receive care that is fragmented, incomplete, inefficient, and ineffective,” wrote Boult and co-author G. Darryl Wieland, of Palmetto Health Richland Hospital in Columbia, S.C.

The authors looked at other studies on comprehensive primary care for seniors with chronic conditions and found there are good ways to substantially improve care. They include comprehensive assessment, evidence-based care planning and monitoring, promotion of patients’ and (family caregivers’) active engagement in care, and coordination of professionals in care of the patient.

With this criteria, the three models were identified:
+the Geriatric Resources for Assessment and Care of Elders (GRACE) model
+Guided Care
+the Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE)

All there incorporate teams of health care professionals such as primary care doctors, registered nurses and other professionals. They offered comprehensive assessment, development of a plan, implementation of the plan over time, proactive monitoring and coordination of care and facilitation of the patients transition out of hospitals and to support programs that include meals and exercise.

The plans operate differently, with nurses and social works in charge for one and primary care doctors coordinating another and managed care for the third. The authors said more research is needed to determine who benefits most from each type. They also said more education is needed for providers on the effective models.

Anyone participate in one of the programs?

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: geriatrics
        

I thought I might take dedicate a little space to our pets' health: They, like us, are aging and may need a little more medical attention.

Dogs and cats are considered senior a bit earlier than we might think, according to a Kansas State University veterinarian. Susan Nelson, an assistant professor of clinical services, says cats are considered senior from ages 8-11 – 48-60 in human years. At 12 they are geriatric.

Small dogs, 0-20 pounds, become senior at 8 and geriatric at 11 – human equivalent of 50 and 62. Dogs that weigh 120 pounds or more are senior at 4 and geriatric at 6 – 49 and 69 in human years.

And when they age, they can get people-like illnesses, including diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, osteoarthritis, periodontal disease and heart disease.

Nelson recommends routine exams and tests to catch problems and routine vaccinations and preventative medicines such as heartworm pills. There are treatments for many of the maladies. And just as with people, she said exercise is important.

“Such actions obviously can't prevent all diseases, but when caught early, many diseases can be managed and extended good quality of life can be achieved,” she said in a statement.

Nelson also noted that behavior can change. Pets may eat and play less, sleep more or become disoriented. They may become more fearful of thunderstorms, separation and children and may not be able to run and jump like they used to. She said avoid those things if they bother your pet and seek advice from a vet on behavior modification. Try a walk or swim to go easy on the joints.

You may also  need a new soft place to sleep for worn joints and soft food if they have painful teeth. You may also need to move the litter box or turn on more lights. And, of course, she said make sure you give them lots of TLC.

Baltimore Sun file photo

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: geriatrics
        

Elderly Marylanders go to the emergency for falls more than any other injury, according to state health officials.

That may not seem like a big deal.

But unlike young folks, who can pop back up from a spill, a fall can be dangerous for someone over age 65. Falls can cause major injuries, such as hip fractures. These injuries can lead to long stays in a hospital or nursing home - and even lead to death.

Hospitalizations because of falls can cost the state more than $120 million, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. An average of 63 elderly Marylanders a day were treated in emergency rooms because of falls in 2007, according to DHMH.

Seniors who fall are two to three times more likely than younger people to fall again. Older adults also tend to become less active after a fall because they fear taking another tumble.

MDHH offers these tips to prevent future falls:

1. Exercise: A regular exercise program improve strength, balance and coordination.

2. Get a review of medications: A health care provider can determine if medications or combinations of medications may make you sleepy or dizzy and cause you to fall.

3. Get your vision checked: Poor vision can increase your chances of falling. Have it checked once a year.

4. Make your home safe: Remove tripping hazards like books and papers from stairs. Remove throw rugs or keep them in place with tape. Install grab bars next to your toilet or shower.

Posted by Andrea Walker at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: geriatrics
        

The Kennedy Krieger Institute has been awarded $8.5 million to study Alzheimer's disease in people with down syndrome.

The medical institution said that Alzheimer's is hard to detect in any patient, but even more difficult in people with down syndrome. It is important to detect the disease early so treatment can be started immediately, scientists have found.

The grant was awarded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. It will allow Kennedy Krieger to continue a program it began in 1987 looking at aging and dementia in adults with down syndrome. The program will now last through May 31, 2015.

The new study will include research on whether risk for Alzhiemer's in the down syndrome population is associated with insulin resistance.

Posted by Andrea Walker at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: geriatrics