by
Kathy Wetters on
July 31, 2010
We are living in an ever-expanding global workplace. Employees today have to adapt to many new challenges as a result - interacting with coworkers and clients in different time zones, language issues, cultural differences, to name a few. One challenge we don't often hear about is globalization's affect on the care of employee caregivers.
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by
Kathy Wetters on
July 30, 2010
The summer travel season is approaching, and with it, families are asking where to go? How to get there? What to do? The CareGiver Partnership, a national retailer of home health products, offers resources to help summer travelers address caregiving needs before hitting the road.
"Caregiving and family travel both can be highly rewarding, but also have the potential to be stressful," says Lynn Wilson, Founder of The CareGiver Partnership. "Whether you're planning to vacation with a loved one who needs special care - or looking for peace of mind while a loved one stays home - the key words for success are plan, plan, and plan."
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by
Kathy Wetters on
July 29, 2010
Framingham Study, a population-based study that has followed participants residing in the town of Framingham, Massachusetts since 1948 for cardiovascular risk factors, and is now also tracking cognitive performance. Framingham is widely acknowledged as a premier longitudinal study; it has continued to yield valuable information for more than 40 years.
Zaldy Tan, MD, MPH, of Brigham and Women's Hospital, GRECC, VA Boston, and Harvard Medical School, and colleagues estimated the levels of 24-hour physical activity of more than 1,200 elderly participants from the Framingham Study (742 female; age 76 +\-5) during the study's 20th examination cycle (1986-87) and followed them for the development of dementia. They divided the participants into five groups based on level of physical activity, from lowest (Q1) to highest (Q5).
Over two decades of follow-up (mean 9.9 +/-5 years), 242 participants developed dementia (of which 193 were Alzheimer's). The researchers found that participants who performed moderate to heavy levels of physical activity had about a 40 percent lower risk of developing any type of dementia. Further, people who reported the lowest levels of physical activity were 45 percent more likely to develop any type of dementia compared to those who reported higher levels of activity. Similar results were seen when analyses were limited to Alzheimer's alone. Analyses showed that the observed associations were largely evident in men in the study
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by
Kathy Wetters on
July 27, 2010
Growing evidence suggests that consuming antioxidant-rich foods and beverages, such as fruits and vegetables and their 100 percent juices, may help slow and possibly even reverse age-related cognitive decline. Dr. Robert Krikorian from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati presented preliminary research suggesting that drinking grape juice from Concord grapes might benefit older adults with early memory decline.
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by
Kathy Wetters on
July 26, 2010
More than five million Americans have heart failure, a condition that accounts for more than one million hospitalizations annually, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). But though k can be a life-threatening problem that can result from a variety of cardiovascular complications, heart failure is neither unavoidable nor untreatable.
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by
Kathy Wetters on
July 26, 2010
More than five million Americans have heart failure, a condition that accounts for more than one million hospitalizations annually, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). But though k can be a life-threatening problem that can result from a variety of cardiovascular complications, heart failure is neither unavoidable nor untreatable.
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by
Kathy Wetters on
July 25, 2010
About five million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the fact that it is progressive and fatal is underlined by a recent study linking both AD and its precursor, mild cognitive impairment (MCI, which is thought to affect a further five million) with an increased risk of death.
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by
Kathy Wetters on
July 24, 2010
Hospitals that exhibited better adherence to discharge measures did not have lower readmission rates.
Preventing hospital readmissions presents an opportunity to improve healthcare quality and lower costs. Although the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have launched a national effort to report hospital performance on discharge planning, we know little about whether discharge planning translates to fewer bounce-back admissions.
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by
Kathy Wetters on
July 24, 2010
A stiffening of the aging brain's blood vessels reduces their ability to respond to changes in blood pressure, increasing the risk of falls by as much as 70 percent, researchers have reported .
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by
Kathy Wetters on
July 23, 2010
A 30-ingredient "cocktail" of dietary supplements under study at Ontario's McMaster University is purported to have powerful anti-aging effects. How ever, until future human trials are completed (the research is currently being conducted in mice), a nutrition expert strongly recommends against the use of supplements to prevent and treat disease.
"There are many other things you can do to increase your quality of life that we already know about, such as getting exercise, particularly weight-bearing exercise, and eating a good, balanced diet," says Charles Mueller, PhD, a nutrition core manager at Weill Cornell Medical College. "But based on a rodent study no, you shouldn't go out and start taking these things."
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