News by Subject Medicine & Health

Dr. John W. Rowe is a member of a WHO Expert Panel on Care of the Elderly which just released guidance for prevention and management of COVID-19 among elderly in long term care facilities. The paper outlines guidance on Infection Prevention and Control in the context of COVID-19 which is to prevent COVID-19-virus from entering the facility, spreading within the facility, and spreading to outside the facility.

People say life gets better with age. Now research suggests this may be because older people have the wisdom and time to use mindfulness as a means to improve wellbeing. Healthy ageing researchers at Flinders University say certain characteristics of mindfulness seem more strongly evident in older people compared to younger people - and suggest ways for all ages to benefit.

An Oregon State University study published last week found that diabetes education programs that are linguistically and culturally tailored to Latinos lead to significantly higher rates of completion among Latino participants -- even higher than rates among non-Latinos enrolled in the English versions of those programs.

Longer lives are not only for female humans: Mammalian female's average lifespan is 18.6% longer than that of males. In humans the female advantage is on average 7.8%.

Taking a low-dose aspirin once a day does not reduce the risk of thinking and memory problems caused by mild cognitive impairment or probable Alzheimer's disease, nor does it slow the rate of cognitive decline, according to a large study published in the March 25, 2020, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Older people are generally more emotionally stable and better able to resist temptations in their daily lives, a new study says. Researchers from Duke and Vanderbilt pinged 123 study participants aged 20 to 80 on their cell phones three times a day for ten days. They indicated how they felt on a five-point scale for each of eight emotional states, including contentment, enthusiasm, relaxation and sluggishness, and whether they were craving chocolate, cigarettes or sex.

Nearly all older Americans support adding a dental benefit to the Medicare program that covers most people over age 65, according to a new national poll that also reveals how often costs get in the way of oral health for older adults.

From the age of 50, there is a decline not just in physical activity but also in cognitive abilities since the two are correlated. But which of them influences the other? Researchers (UNIGE) used a database of over 100,000 people aged 50-90 whose physical and cognitive abilities were measured every two years for 12 years. The findings show that cognitive abilities ward off inactivity much more than physical activity prevents the decline in cognitive abilities.