Senior Prescription Savings

Professor Bo Malmberg and Professor Gerdt Sundström at the School of Health Sciences in Jönköping, Sweden have studied loneliness among older people. A common stereotype about older people is that loneliness is typical for older women, rather than for older men. One problem with this stereotype is that feelings of loneliness are not particularly common among either men or women in the Nordic countries.

"A year into a new effort to expand health coverage, recession-weary Marylanders are flocking to the state's Medicaid program in numbers far greater than expected, costing the state $50 million more in the process," The Baltimore Sun reports.

The Patients Doctors Don't Know The New York Times All medical students are required to have clinical experiences in pediatrics and obstetrics, even though after they graduate most will never treat a child or deliver a baby.

"A new large-scale study of medical records found that the extra cost of extending prescription coverage to Medicare enrollees was substantially offset by lower spending on other medical care for people who previously had limited or no prescription-drug coverage," The Wall Street Journal reports.

President Obama reiterated his call to adjust Medicare reimbursement rates as a part of his broad push for health reform in a meeting with nine reporters, including writers from local newspapers, Wednesday. "While steering clear of details, Obama indicated that revised reimbursement rates helpful to areas [where reimbursement rates are low] should be part of a comprehensive healthcare reform package now in the works,"

Researchers in Sweden found that people who have the APOE Alzheimer's gene and who live alone in middle age after being widowed or separated from a life partner, are at higher risk of developing dementia. The study is the work of Dr Krister Hakannson, a research fellow at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and colleagues, and is published in the 2 July online issue of the BMJ.

As we prepare for hotter, humid weeks ahead and temperatures reach well over 100 degrees in some parts of the country, older adults are at higher risk of health problems if they don't take the proper precautions to protect themselves from the sweltering heat. About 200 Americans die of health problems caused by high heat and humidity every year, most of them are 50 or older. Due to some of the physical changes that happen as we age, older adults can't cool down as easily as others.

Closing residential homes affects quality of life. Care providers must protect the elderly by ensuring those most in need have access to residential homes. That's according to Nick Bruce, owner of Nightingales Retirement Care, who has spoken out after a glut of home closures. "Around the UK there are a large number of homes being shut down and replaced by homecare services," says Bruce.

Scientists in the UK and Denmark have shown that if elderly men were given growth hormone and exercised their legs showed an appreciable muscle mass increase. Dr. Geoff Goldspink (Royal Free and University College Medical School, UK) says: "This raises the question: Can age-related loss of muscle strength and increased fragility be ameliorated by the therapeutic application of mechano growth factor (MGF)?".