Seniors/Aging News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. pharmaceutical companies benefited from a $3.7 billion "windfall" during the first two years of Medicare's prescription drug coverage, according to a report from Democratic congressional staff released on Thursday.

TUESDAY, July 22 (HealthDay News) -- If an influenza pandemic swept through the United States, nursing homes might not be prepared to deal with patient overflow from hospitals, say researchers who looked at more than 400 nursing homes in Michigan and Nebraska to come to this conclusion.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The results of a study in the current issue of the journal Stroke suggest that there is an association between depression and an increased risk of having a first stroke in elderly patients.

MONDAY, July 21 (HealthDay News) -- Starting next year, doctors can earn additional money from Medicare if they use electronic prescribing systems, U.S. health officials said Monday.

WASHINGTON - Those hard-to-read scribbled prescriptions from doctors could soon become a rarity. Beginning Jan. 1, the federal government will boost Medicare's payments to doctors that send prescriptions electronically to a pharmacy rather than writing them out on paper and handing them to the patient.

BOSTON - An elderly woman has been diagnosed with a rare brain disorder, state health officials said Monday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Alzheimer's patients given a popular rheumatoid arthritis drug showed seemingly dramatic improvements in a small study, but some doctors worried that the early findings will raise premature hopes in patients and their families.

SATURDAY, July 19 (HealthDay News) -- Falls are a leading cause of serious injury and death among elderly people in the United States, and most of those falls occur in the home, says the American Geriatric Society (AGS).

FRIDAY, July 18 (HealthDay News) -- It's one step forward, one step back in the search for treatments against Alzheimer's disease.

PARIS (AFP) - A nearly forgotten Russian-made drug, formulated to combat hay fever, helps improve cognitive abilities in patients with Alzheimer's disease, according to the results of a year-long trial published on Thursday.

LONDON - Some doctors have long suspected that if the plaque that builds up in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease could be removed, they could be saved. But a new vaccine that did just that suggests the theory is wrong.

WASHINGTON - Global warming will affect the health and welfare of every American, but the poor, elderly, and children will suffer the most, according to a new White House science report released Thursday.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Falls by elderly people are cut significantly when health care providers take basic steps such as prescribing physical therapy, monitoring medications and checking standing blood pressure, researchers said on Wednesday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have identified the brain circuits that play a key role in helping us pay attention, a finding that may help explain why things go wrong in diseases such as Alzheimer's and attention deficit disorders.

TUESDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- More than one-third of elderly patients on Medicare take a companion with them for routine medical visits.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Ultrasound imaging is a simple, noninvasive way to detect distension of the carotid arteries - the arteries that pass through the neck to supply the brain with oxygen -- which is an independent predictor of coronary heart disease (CHD) in the elderly, French researchers report in the current issue of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.

NEW YORK - Getting a lot of exercise may help slow brain shrinkage in people with early Alzheimer's disease, a preliminary study suggests. Analysis found that participants who were more physically fit had less brain shrinkage than less-fit participants. However, they didn't do significantly better on tests for mental performance.

MONDAY, July 14 (HealthDay News) -- Men and women with early-stage Alzheimer's disease who were more physically fit also had larger brains compared to their counterparts in less stellar shape.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Elderly people who bring along a companion when they visit their doctor may be more satisfied with the care they receive than those who go it alone, a study indicates.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - People age 75 or older recover just as well as younger patients from knee or hip replacements to correct the ravages of arthritis, researchers said on Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Scientists have found evidence that a mutation in a gene called CALHM1 that results in abnormal calcium signaling influences the risk of Alzheimer's disease, a devastating neurodegenerative disease that affects nearly 18 million people in the world.

WEDNESDAY, July 9 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to sex, grandma and grandpa are having more of it these days, new Swedish research suggests.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former Wall Street banker who said he lost $3 million from compulsive gambling caused by a popular drug used to treat Parkinson's disease is suing companies involved with the drug for his losses.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A key U.S. Democratic lawmaker charged on Wednesday that members of the military's civilian health plan will suffer if a stalemate over health insurance reimbursement is not remedied.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation that cut fees doctors receive for giving chemotherapy to Medicare patients has not affected care so far, researchers reported on Tuesday.

CHICAGO - A prostate cancer study that could change how doctors treat some patients found that widely used hormone-blocking drugs did not improve survival chances for older men whose disease hadn't spread.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Regular daily exercise benefits elderly women with dementia and these benefits appear to accrue over time, researchers from the Republic of Korea report.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Treating high blood pressure in the very elderly may help reduce their risk of developing dementia, researchers said on Monday.

BERLIN (AFP) - The German upper house passed a motion on Friday calling for laws on assisted suicide to be tightened after a former politician caused outrage by helping an elderly woman to die.