Irregular medication use increases seniors’ chances of falling

May 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 20 (ANI): A new study says that older adults increase their chances of falling by not taking their medications as directed.

This new finding comes from a recent study of Boston-area residents over age 70, which found that those who sometimes neglected their medications experienced a 50 percent increased rate of falls compared with those who did not.

“Falls can now be added to the growing list of poor health outcomes associated with non-adherence to medication,” said lead author Sarah D. Berry, a research scientist with the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston.

“Because non-adherence is common and easy to screen for, health care providers should discuss this subject with their patients,” she added.

Berry and her co-authors are the first investigators to study the association between falls and medication adherence. The team used data gathered from subjects in the Maintenance of Balance, Independent Living, Intellect, and Zest in the Elderly of Boston (MOBILIZE Boston) Study, a community-based cohort of seniors recruited for the purpose of studying novel risk factors for falls.

They examined responses from a total of 246 men and 408 women with an average age of 78. Between 2005 and 2008, 376 individuals in this group reported a total of 1,052 falls.

A participant was characterized as having low medication adherence if he or she answered yes to any of the following questions: Do you ever forget to take your medications? Are you careless at times about taking your medications? When you feel better do you sometimes stop taking your medications? Sometimes if you feel worse when taking your medication, do you stop taking it? High adherence was defined as a “no” answer to every question. In total, 48 percent of the respondents were classified as having low medication adherence.

Those in the low-adherence group experienced falls at an annual rate of 1.5 times that of the high adherence group. This association persisted after adjusting for other variables, including age, sex, cognitive function, and total number of medications.

The study has been published the latest edition of the Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological and Medical Sciences. (ANI)

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Belly fat ‘increases dementia risk’

May 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 20 (ANI): People with fat stomachs could be at a greater risk of developing dementia, scientists from Boston University School of Medicine have warned.

For the study, Sudha Seshadri, and colleagues recruited participants from the Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort.

The sample included 733 community participants who had a mean age of 60 years with roughly 70 percent of the study group comprised of women.

Researchers examined the association between Body Mass Index (BMI), waist circumference, waist to hip ratio, CT-based measures of abdominal fat, with MRI measures of total brain volume (TCBV), temporal horn volume (THV), white matter hyperintensity volume (WMHV) and brain infarcts in the middle-aged participants.

“Our results confirm the inverse association of increasing BMI with lower brain volumes in older adults and with younger, middle-aged adults and extends the findings to a much larger study sample,” said Dr. Seshadri.

Prior studies were conducted in cohorts with less than 300 participants and the current study includes over 700 individuals.

“More importantly our data suggests a stronger connection between central obesity, particularly the visceral fat component of abdominal obesity, and risk of dementia and Alzheimer”s disease,” Dr. Seshadri added.

The research showed the association between VAT and TCBV was most robust and was also independent of BMI and insulin resistance. Researchers did not observe a statistically significant correlation between CT-based abdominal fat measures and THV, WMHV or BI.

“Our findings, while preliminary, provide greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying the link between obesity and dementia. Further studies will add to our knowledge and offer important methods of prevention,” said Dr. Seshadri.

The study has been published early online in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association. (ANI)

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The good life begins at 50

May 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, May 18 (ANI): Life may begin at 40, but the fun really starts at 50, that’s the conclusion of a new study.

According to the study, carried out at Stony Brook University, in New York, falling levels of stress and worry, a longer life and better health mean life begins at 50.

Instead of taking a backseat, older adults now pursue fulfillment in a more active and vigorous middle age, reports The Daily Express.

In the study, boffins found that older folks benefited from a “positivity effect” meaning they recalled fewer bad memories, had more emotional control and an ability to see things positively.

The US study of 340,000 people was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study found variables like having children or no job had no effect on age-related patterns of well being. (ANI)

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Cochlear implants ‘less beneficial’ for the elderly

May 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 18 (ANI): Cochlear implants are less beneficial for older adults as compared to younger patients who have similar levels of hearing impairment before surgery, according to a report.

The study has been published in the May issue of Archives of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Cochlear implants have become an accepted treatment for adults with age-related hearing loss or the progression of early-onset hearing loss, according to background information in the article.

David R. Friedland, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, studied the medical records of patients who received cochlear implants at age 65 or older between 1999 and 2008. Each of 28 older patients was matched to a younger patient (receiving an implant at ages 18 to 64) with similar pre-implantation hearing test scores.

One year after implantation, 55 of the 56 total patients showed improvement on hearing testing. Regardless of their age at implantation, higher test scores before surgery predicted higher test scores afterward. However, the older patients performed more poorly than younger patients on some speech perception tests at the one-year follow-up.

“One explanation for these results is that the elderly patient may have a prolonged adaptation phase and reach levels attained by younger users at one-year postimplantation at a later point,” the authors write. “Alternatively, elderly patients may have inherent limitations in processing the high-rate stimulation paradigms used in current cochlear implants. Central cognitive or associative processes may also influence the performance in the population of elderly patients.” (ANI)

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Music helps Alzheimer”s sufferers in remembering new information

May 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 13 (ANI): Patients with Alzheimer”s disease (AD) are better able to remember new verbal information when it is provided in the context of music even when compared to healthy, older adults, claim researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM).

The findings, which currently appear on-line in Neuropsychologia, offer possible applications in treating and caring for patients with AD.

AD, the most common form of dementia, is characterized by a general, progressive decline in cognitive function that typically presents first as impaired episodic memory. The onset and rate of this decline tends to vary across cognitive domains, and some functions may be preferentially spared in patients with AD.

To determine whether music can enhance new learning of information, AD patients and healthy controls were presented with either the words spoken, or the lyrics sung with full musical accompaniment along with the printed lyrics on a computer screen. The participants were presented visually with the lyrics to 40 songs. Twenty of the song lyrics were accompanied by their corresponding sung recording and 20 were accompanied by their spoken recording.

After each presentation, participants were asked to indicate whether or not they were previously familiar with the song they had just heard. The BUSM researchers found accuracy was greater in the sung condition than in the spoken condition for AD patients but not for healthy older controls.

“Our results confirmed our hypothesis that patients with AD performed better on a task of recognition memory for the lyrics of songs when those lyrics were accompanied by a sung recording than when they were accompanied by a spoken recording,” said senior author Brandon Ally, PhD, an assistant professor of neurology and director of Neuropsychology Research at the BUSM Center for Translational Cognitive Neuroscience. “However, contrary to our hypothesis, healthy older adults showed no such benefit of music, he added. (ANI)

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Fluctuating BP linked to cerebrovascular disease risk

May 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 11 (ANI): Individuals who have fluctuating blood pressure in addition to high blood pressure are at a higher risk for cerebrovascular diseases, according to a new study.

The study appears in the May issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Cerebrovascular disease, which includes stroke and other disorders affecting blood vessels in the brain, is associated with cognitive decline and disability in older adults, according to background information in the article.

Elevated blood pressure can cause cerebrovascular disease and has also been shown to be associated with poorer cognitive function and the risk for Alzheimer”s disease. Studies that examine associations between blood pressure and cerebrovascular disease generally consider blood pressure measurements at only one time point.

Adam M. Brickman, Ph.D., of Columbia University”s Taub Institute, New York, and colleagues studied 686 older adults without dementia who had blood pressure measurements taken during three study visits at 24-month intervals and underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to detect cerebrovascular disease. The researchers divided the participants into four groups depending on whether their blood pressure was high or low and whether they had high or low fluctuations in blood pressure between visits.

In general, persons in the two high blood pressure groups had either hypertension or prehypertension, whereas those in the other two groups had blood pressure that was considered normal. Those with the lowest fluctuations experienced changes of about 5.5 percent (among those with low blood pressure) and 5.2 percent (among those with high blood pressure), compared with 14.2 percent among those in the high-fluctuating groups.

Over the three-year period, elevated blood pressure and fluctuations in blood pressure were both associated with cerebrovascular disease. Either factor was independently associated with an increased risk, and those with higher average blood pressure and more fluctuation had proportionately more cerebrovascular disease than did those with either condition alone.

Participants who had the highest blood pressure and fluctuation levels were most likely to be treated with antihypertensive medications, suggesting that a lack of treatment compliance may be one source of fluctuation.

“Cerebrovascular disease is associated with a constellation of conditions that lead to disability, including cognitive impairment, mood and movement disorders,” the authors conclude. “Although the control of elevated blood pressure or the treatment of hypertension is an obvious and well-replicated conclusion, these findings suggest that management of blood pressure fluctuations, even in normotensive older adults, may be beneficial in reducing the risk of cerebrovascular disease and in maximizing healthy cognitive aging.” (ANI)

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Ageing alone doesn’t cause poor sleep in elderly

May 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Melbourne, May 10 (ANI): It’s not just ageing that cause poor sleep in older adults, says a Chinese study with the largest-ever cohort of the very elderly.

Centenarians in China were 70 percent more likely to report good quality sleep than younger seniors age 65 to 79, according to Danan Gu, of Portland State University in Portland, Ore., and colleagues.

All other factors being equal, good sleep quality was 19 percent more common among respondents in their 80s and 38 percent more likely among those in their 90s, compared to those from age 65 to 79.

“These findings may support the argument that sleep problems at old and oldest-old ages likely arise from a variety of physiological and psychosocial factors rather than aging per se,” ABC News quoted Gu”s group as saying.

Another possibility is that people change their perception of “acceptable” sleep with advancing age, they said.

The researchers analysed a nationally representative, population-based survey dataset from mainland China, which has the world”s largest population of nonagenarians and centenarians.

The 2005 wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey included interviews with 15,638 individuals age 65 and older (43 percent men, 57 percent women).

Their ages broke down as follows: 5,047 age 65 to 79; 3,870 in their 80s; 3,927 in their 90s; 2,794 age 100 or older.

Overall, 65 percent reported good sleep quality, with 7.5 to 8 hours being the most common duration.

They found that sleep quality didn”t appear to decline with age, but there were trends for better sleep.

Men were 42 percent more likely to report good sleep than women.

Those of Han ancestry were 34 percent more likely to report good sleep than ethnic Chinese minorities, and those in rural areas were 9 percent more likely to report better sleep than urban dwellers.

After adjustment for socioeconomic condition, family or social support, smoking and drinking habits centenarians were 13 percent more likely to report good sleep quality than their 65- to 79-year-old counterparts.

The study has been published in a recent issue of SLEEP. (ANI)

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Confiding in spouse over sexual issues eases stress in older men

May 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 6 (ANI): Older men who talk to their partner about sexual problems report greater happiness, says a new study.

Published in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, the study shows that the way men and women deal with sexual health and stress in their later years varies greatly and that there is not one solution that can help ease unhappiness caused by sexual problems.

The research was conducted by Ryo Hirayama, a Ph.D. student in Oregon State University”s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, and professor Alexis Walker, who is the Jo Anne L. Petersen Chair in Gerontology and Family Studies at OSU. The study was conducted with data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project.

To reach the conclusion, the Oregon State researchers looked at 861 people ages 57 to 85 who were married or had an intimate partner, and who reported having at least one sexual problem.

The sexual problems reported by older adults included lack of interest in sex, inability to climax, physical pain during sex, maintaining an erection, or lubrication issues. Respondents were asked to indicate on a scale from 1 to 3 how bothered they were by each problem they listed. They also were asked about their well-being, which the researchers measured by using typical scales for happiness and for depressive symptoms.

The study found: fewer than half of older adults with sexual problems discussed these problems with their doctors, although men were more likely to do so than women. In addition, whether older adults discussed these issues with their physicians did not make a difference in their well-being.

“This was our most unexpected outcome,” Hirayama said. “Older adults are advised to talk to their doctors about sexual health issues, but not all people do so and talking with a physician is not as helpful as you might expect.”

However, confiding in a partner or with friends was found to be effective for many men in reducing stress and unhappiness related to sexual problems. Unfortunately for women, this same benefit was not reported.

“In fact, women with higher levels of sexual stress who confided in their close friends reported lower happiness,” Hirayama said. “We aren”t quite sure what to make of this finding.”

Women did not see any reduction in stress or well-being (unhappiness and depression) when they talked to their spouses either.

“What this tells is that women”s sexual issues are complex, and that complexity needs to be recognized,” Walker said. “A woman with a great deal of sexual concerns could feel threatened by talking to her spouse about it, or perhaps simply confiding in a friend is not enough.” (ANI)

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Why late-life depression is harder to treat

May 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 5 (ANI): In a new study, scientists have tried to explain why people who suffer from depression in later life are harder to treat and keep well in the long term.

The study led by Toronto”s Baycrest has found that older adults with depression don”t respond normally to emotional stimuli, such as when they see happy, sad or neutral faces.

The study appears online this week in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

“In our study we found significant differences between older depressed subjects and older healthy subjects in how they emotionally respond to and perceive facial expressions,” said principal investigator Dr. Linda Mah, a clinician-scientist in the Mood Clinic at Baycrest.

Emotion dysregulation is already well established in mid-life depression and some studies have shown it to be predictive of a relapse of mood symptoms. But the majority of late-life depression studies have concentrated on the link with cognitive decline, suggesting that the more impaired the cognitive functions the greater the chances of a poor prognosis in depression.

“Our data suggest that we need to also focus on emotion to better understand the neurobiology of late-life depression, so we can treat it more effectively and help people feel better longer,” said Dr. Mah.

In the study, 11 un-medicated outpatients with major depressive disorder, and 11 healthy comparison subjects, participated in two tasks that involved looking at photographs of faces with happy, sad, fearful or neutral expressions. The age range of participants was 60 to 87.

In the first task, participants were asked to make judgments regarding a physical feature of faces, rather than judging the emotional expression. In the second task, participants were asked to label the emotional expressions on faces.

The study found that healthy controls were 16 percent slower in making judgments about physical features of the faces with positive or negative emotional expressions (happy, sad, fearful) relative to neutral faces – an indication that they were distracted or affected by the emotional expressions on faces.

The depressed participants showed no differences in response time to rating physical aspects of faces with emotional expressions or neutral faces. This suggests they were less sensitive to the effects of positive or negative emotional expressions.

In the second task, depressed participants had greater than 60 percent more difficulty with correctly labeling neutral faces, compared to healthy subjects. Depressed participants misread neutral expressions as happy, sad or fearful.

Dr. Mah noted that an impaired ability to read other people”s emotional expressions can have social consequences and affect the quality of social interactions with others.

She also pointed out that these abnormalities in emotional processing seen in older depressed adults are distinct from those already reported in younger depressed adults who tend to perceive and process emotional stimuli more negatively overall when compared to healthy subjects. (ANI)

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Mood and anxiety disorders remain common in older adults

May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 4 (ANI): A study has found that many older adults, especially women, may still suffer from mood and anxiety disorders, which appear to decline with age.

“Knowledge of the prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders and co-existing mood-anxiety disorder in older community-dwelling adults is important; these are hidden and under treated but treatable disorders associated with poor health outcomes,” the authors write as background information in the article.

Amy L. Byers, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues determined nationally representative estimates of mood, anxiety and combined mood and anxiety disorders using a sample of 2,575 survey participants age 55 and older.

Of these, 43 percent were ages 55 to 64; 32 percent, 65 to 74 years; 20 percent, 75 to 84 years; and 5 percent, 85 years or older.

A total of 5 percent of participants had a mood disorder, including major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder, within the previous year.

Rates of anxiety disorders-such as panic disorder, agoraphobia, other phobias, generalized anxiety disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder-were 12 percent overall.

About 3 percent had co-occurring mood and anxiety disorders.

Prevalence of all the conditions declined with age. When comparing persons age 55 to 64 with those age 85 and older, 7.6 percent vs. 2.4 percent had mood disorders, 16.6 percent vs. 8.1 percent had anxiety disorders, and 4.8 percent vs. 0 percent had both conditions.

Women were more likely to have any of the disorders than men; 6.4 percent of women and 3 percent of men had mood disorders, 14.7 percent of women and 7.6 percent of men had anxiety disorders, and 3.7 of women and 1.6 percent of men had both.

“The study of nationally representative samples provides evidence for research and policy planning that helps to define community-based priorities for future psychiatric research,” the authors wrote.

“The findings of this study emphasize the importance of individual and co-existing mood and anxiety disorders when studying older adults, even the oldest cohorts.

“Further study of risk factors, course and severity is needed to target intervention, prevention and health care needs.

“Given the rapid aging of the U.S. population, the potential public health burden of late-life mental health disorders will likely grow as well, suggesting the importance of continued epidemiologic monitoring of the mental health status of the young-old, mid-old, old-old and oldest-old cohorts,” they concluded.

The findings have been published in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. (ANI)

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Regular booze ‘harms those over 60 with health issues, prescription meds’

April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 30 (ANI): More than a third of drinkers 60 years old and older consume amounts of alcohol that are excessive or that are potentially harmful in combination with certain diseases they may have or medications they may be taking, a study ahs found.

Basing their research on data from 3,308 older patients accessing primary care clinics around Santa Barbara, Calif., the authors at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA report that just as many individuals were at risk from alcohol consumption in combination with comorbidities or medication as from alcohol consumption alone.

The study, published in the current online edition of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, also found that at-risk drinking was associated with being younger, white and less educated.

“Compared to the U.S. Census population over age 60, the sample studied was more likely to be white, married, well-educated and high-income,” said lead study author Andrew Barnes, a researcher in the UCLA School of Public Health”s department of health services. “However, the adjusted associations of patient demographics with at-risk drinking found in our research should be more generalizable than the descriptive data published previously.”

At-risk drinking was assessed using the Comorbidity Alcohol Risk Evaluation Tool (CARET), which categorizes older adults as at risk if they display at least one of the following drinking behaviors: they consume more than two drinks on most days; they consume one to two drinks on most days and have certain comorbidities, such as gout, hepatitis or nausea; they consume one to two drinks on most days and take select medications, such as antidepressants or sedatives.

“In summary, even among our relatively advantaged study patients, as many as one in three who continued to consume alcohol into older adulthood were at risk of harm from drinking,” the researchers wrote. “Physicians may be less aware of other alcohol-related risk factors common among the elderly (e.g., interactions with select medications and comorbidities) than the risks associated with heavy drinking. Information suggesting which patients have the highest likelihood of at-risk drinking may assist physicians to better target patients for further screening and intervention.” (ANI)

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Eat like the Greeks to boost your brainpower

April 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 27 (ANI): People who eat a classic Mediterranean diet rich in vegetables, fruits, olive oil, cereals and fish improve their brainpower, says an ongoing prospective study.

Called the Chicago Health and Aging Project, the study has shown that adherence to the Mediterranean diet can reduce the risk of cognitive decline with older age.

“This diet emphasizes vegetables, fruits, fish, olive oil, lower meat consumption, and moderate wine and non-refined grain intake,” said lead author Dr. Christy Tangney of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “Instead of espousing avoidance of foods, the data support that adults over age 65 should look to include more olive oil, legumes, nuts, and seeds in their diet in order to improve their recall times and other cognitive skills, such as identifying symbols and numbers.”

The nearly 4,000 participants in this study included black and white adults aged 65 and older. They were given a battery of cognitive tests which were assigned scores and then a clinical interview. Those who ranked in the highest in terms of following such a Mediterranean-type diet were more protected from cognitive decline. The adults were given these cognitive tests every 3 years for 15 years. “Finally, we want older adults to remember that physical activity is an important part of maintaining cognitive skills,” added Tangney.

The finding has been presented at the Experimental Biology 2010 Meeting in Anaheim as part of the scientific program of the American Society for Nutrition. (ANI)

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Proper intake of vitamin D improves quality of life for seniors

April 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 26 (ANI): A new study suggests that proper intake of vitamin D (the ‘sunshine’ vitamin) is related to better physical function in seniors.

Dr. Denise Houston from the Sticht Center on Aging at Wake Forest University and her colleagues studied the relationship between vitamin D status and physical function in a group of relatively healthy seniors living in Memphis, TN and Pittsburgh, PA.

This study was part of the Health, Aging, and Body Composition (Health ABC) study initially designed to assess the associations among body composition, long-term health conditions, and mobility in older adults.

For Houston”s segment of the investigation, she studied 2788 seniors for 4 years. At the beginning of the study, they assessed vitamin D status by analyzing each person”s blood for 25-hydroxyvitamin D, a precursor for activated vitamin D.

At baseline and then 2 and 4 years later, the research team then determined whether circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D was related to the participants” physical function.

Specifically, they looked at how quickly each participant could walk a short distance (6 meters) and rise from a chair five times as well as maintain his or her balance in progressively more challenging positions.

Each participant was also put through a battery of tests assessing endurance and strength.

The researchers found that participants with the highest levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D had better physical function.

And, although physical function declined over the course of the study, it remained significantly higher among those with the highest vitamin D levels at the beginning of the study compared to those with the lowest vitamin D levels.

The scientists were not surprised to learn that, in general, vitamin D consumption was very low in this group of otherwise healthy seniors.

In fact, more than 90 percent of them consumed less vitamin D than currently recommended, and many were relying on dietary supplements.

The results of the study were presented on April 25 as part of the scientific program of the American Society for Nutrition, composed of the world”s leading nutrition researchers, at the Experimental Biology 2010 meeting in Anaheim. (ANI)

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Dancing improves seniors’ gait, balance

April 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 17 (ANI): Participation in dance-based therapy can improve balance and gait in older adults, researchers have found.

And improved functionality among seniors can decrease their risk of falling and reduce costly injuries.

“Creative interventions such as dance-based therapy have the potential to significantly reduce falls in older persons,” said Jean Krampe, a registered nurse and doctoral student in the Sinclair School of Nursing. “In the studies, we found improved levels of balance, gait and overall functionality among seniors who participated in regular dance-therapy sessions. Nursing and eldercare professionals can help move these programs into practice to reduce the detrimental burden caused by falls.”

To come with the finding, researchers used a dance-therapy program called The Lebed Method (TLM), which includes a combination of low-impact dance steps choreographed to music.

Sessions were led by certified TLM instructors and adjusted to fit the specific needs of the seniors who participated.

The most recent study was conducted with residents at TigerPlace, an independent-living community developed by MU nursing researchers to help seniors age in place. The study included 18 dance sessions offered throughout a two-month period. Participants reported that they enjoyed the sessions and wanted to continue the program.

“We found that many seniors are eager to participate and continue to come back after attending sessions because they really enjoy it,” Krampe said. “Among seniors that stand up and move during sessions, we found that dance therapy can increase their walking speed and balance, which are two major risk factors for falling.” (ANI)

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Lifestyle regularity a means for maintaining a good night’s sleep

April 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 1 (ANI): Maintaining regular daily routines is associated with better sleep quality in older adults, a new study has claimed.

The study has been published in the April 1 issue of the journal Sleep.

Results of regression analyses indicate that increased stability in daily routine predicted a shorter time to fall asleep, higher sleep efficiency and improved sleep quality.

Stability in basic activities such as bathing, dressing and eating was more strongly associated with sleep quality than stability of instrumental activities such as shopping, public transportation use and medical appointments.

According to the authors, routine lifestyle rhythms may be characterized by stability in the timing, frequency and duration of daily activities such as watching TV or reading a book. It is also possible to identify weekly patterns of regularity in activities such as cleaning, exercise and social engagements.

Lead author Anna Zisberg, R.N., M.A., Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Haifa in Mt. Carmel, Israel, said that the findings highlight the importance of developing lifestyle regularity as a means for maintaining good sleep quality.

“We predicted that there would be a relationship between routine activity patterns and sleep quality, since theoretically sleep patterns and other everyday life activities are related and potentially synchronized,” said Zisberg. “However, given the widely accepted view that light is the major synchronizer of the human sleep-wake cycle, we were surprised that our findings were so robust.”

The study was conducted in the northern part of Israel between August 2007 and September 2008. It involved 96 Russian-speaking older adults in two retirement communities where each apartment was fully equipped as an independent functional unit including a kitchenette. They had a mean age of about 75 years, with a range from 58 to 89 years. Seventy-two percent were female, 82 percent lived alone and 75 percent reported fair or good health. Sleep medication was used less than once a week by five percent of the sample, from once to twice a week by seven percent of participants and three times or more per week by 23 percent of the sample. (ANI)

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Why people forget to take their medicines

March 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 31 (ANI): Remembering to take a daily medication is apparently a tough task for many. Now, researchers have pointed out the reason behind the forgetfulness.

The landmark study from North Carolina State University has found that changes in daily behavior have a significant effect on whether we remember to take our medication – and that these changes influence older and younger adults differently.

“We’ve found that it is not just differences between people, but differences in what we do each day, that affect our ability to remember to take medication,” says Dr. Shevaun Neupert, an assistant professor of psychology at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the research. “This is the first time anyone has looked at the effect daily changes in how busy we are affects our ability to remember medications. We also learned that these changes in daily behavior affect different age groups in different ways.

“For example, young people do the best job of remembering to take their medication on days when they are busier than usual,” Neupert says. “But older adults do a better job of remembering their medication on days when they are less busy.”

To reach the conclusion, the researchers evaluated study participants who were on prescribed daily medications. The participants were divided into two groups: younger adults (between the ages of 18 and 20) and older adults (between the ages of 60 and 89).

For both age groups, the researchers found that participants were more likely to remember to take their medications on days when they performed better than usual on “cognition” tests – which evaluate memory and critical thinking.

“We found that cognition is an important factor in remembering medications,” Neupert says, “but that how busy we are is also important.” This has very real applications for helping people remember to take medications that can be essential to their health and well-being.

“We’ve found such a disparity between young and old adults, that it’s clear we need to tailor our messages to these two groups,” Neupert says. “For example, it is important for young people to stay busy and be active. That will help them remember to take their medications. However, we need to let older adults know that need to be particularly vigilant about remembering medication on days when they expect to be busier than usual.”

The study, “Age Differences in Daily Predictors of Forgetting to Take Medication: The Importance of Context and Cognition,” will be published in a forthcoming issue of Experimental Aging Research. (ANI)

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Inability to ignore distractions behind memory decline in old age

March 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 26 (ANI): Older adults fail to retain information because they cannot ignore irrelevant information when forming memories, according to a new study at the University of California San Francisco.

Research has shown that in older adults there is an increase in brain activity at the time of suppressing responses to distractions.

In the new study, researchers have shown that even prior knowledge of an impending distraction does not help to improve the working memory performance of older adults.

Drs. Theodore Zanto and Adam Gazzaley studied 21 adults aged between 60 and 80 years while they performed a working memory task in which they were shown random sequences of pictures containing faces and scenes.

From a given sequence, participants were asked to remember either only the faces (ignoring scenes) or only the scenes (ignoring faces). In a second round of testing, the participants were given prior information about which specific pictures in the sequence would be relevant and which to ignore.

The participants” brain activity during the tasks was recorded using electroencephalograms (EEGs).

In earlier study, the researchers have shown that the increase in brain activity in response to distractions occurs very soon (within 200 milliseconds) after the distraction appears.

Since there is only a very short amount of time allotted for the brain to identify an item as irrelevant and suppress any further neural processing, it was suggested that older adults might benefit from prior knowledge of the impending distraction.

However, results from the new study have proved that this is not the case.

Interestingly, the researchers found that later stages of neural processing (500-650 milliseconds after item presentation) do show signs of suppression, confirming that the “suppression deficit” is related to early stages of neural processing.

The findings suggest that a working memory decline in older adults is indeed due to an inability to ignore distracting information, which furthermore cannot be improved with preparedness.

The study has been published in the latest issue of Elsevier”s Cortex. (ANI)

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Why older adults remember the past through a positive lens

March 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 25 (ANI): Many older adults maintain a positive outlook, remembering the positive experiences from their past. Now, a new study has revealed that older adults” ability to remember the past through a positive lens is linked to the way in which the brain processes emotional content.

The new study, reported in the April 2010 issue of Elsevier”s Cortex, reveals that in the older adult brain, there are strong connections between those regions that process emotions and those known to be important for successful formation of memories, particularly when processing positive information.

To reach the conclusion, Dr Donna Rose Addis from the University of Auckland, together with a team of researchers supervised by Dr. Elizabeth A. Kensinger of Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA), asked young adults (ages 19-31) and older adults (ages 61-80) to view a series of photographs with positive and negative themes, such as a victorious skier or a wounded soldier. While participants viewed these images, a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan recorded the brain activity across a number of different regions. When participants had completed the fMRI scan, they were asked to remember as many of the photographs as they could.

Analyses revealed that aging did not affect the connectivity among regions engaged during memory formation for negative photographs. However, age differences did arise during the creation of memories for positive photographs. In older adult brains, two regions that are linked to the processing of emotional content – the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (a region located just behind the bridge of the nose) and the amygdala (a region embedded in the tissue between the ears) – were strongly connected to regions that are linked to memory formation. In young adults, there was not a strong connection between the emotion-processing regions and the memory-creation regions.

These findings suggest that older adults remember the good times well, because the brain regions that control the processing of emotions act in concert with those that control the processing of memory, when older adults experience positive events. Young adults lack these strong connections, making it harder for them to remember positive experiences over the long term. (ANI)

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Cognitive decline 4 times faster in Alzheimer”s patients

March 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 23 (ANI): Cognitive abilities decline four times faster in Alzheimer”s patients than those without any cognitive impairment, say researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

The research is the second population-based study to quantify the rate of cognitive decline in Alzheimer”s disease.

“Knowledge about the progressive cognitive decline in Alzheimer”s disease is mainly based on studies of persons evaluated in clinical settings. In such studies, the full spectrum of the disease is unlikely to be represented. As a result, it has been difficult to securely determine the cognitive consequences of the disease and to test whether they vary in racial or ethnic subgroups of the population,” said study author Dr. Robert S. Wilson.

The researchers aimed to quantify the rates of cognitive decline in people who developed Alzheimer”s disease and its precursor, mild cognitive impairment.

The study followed 1,168 older adults. At the beginning of the study, participants did not have dementia.

After a mean of five to six years, they had a detailed clinical evaluation and 614 persons were found to have no cognitive impairment, 395 had mild cognitive impairment, and 149 had Alzheimer”s disease. They then completed brief cognitive testing at 3-year intervals for a mean of five and half years.

In comparison to the no cognitive impairment group, the annual rate of cognitive decline was increased more than twofold in those with mild cognitive impairment and more than fourfold in those with Alzheimer”s disease. The results did not vary by race, sex, or age.

“This study is especially significant because half of the participants are African Americans. Most of what we know about Alzheimer”s disease is based on studies of Caucasians. Our study found no difference in how the disease played out in the two races,” said Wilson.

The study is published in the latest issue of the journal Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. (ANI)

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War talks can boost older adults’ mental health

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Sept 11 (ANI): Encouraging elderly to talk about old times can actually improve their memory and limit effects of dementia, finds a new study.

The research team led by Professor Catherine Haslam, at the University of Exeter, showed that ‘reminiscence therapy’ can significantly increase cognitive recall and agility of the mind by up to 12 per cent within six weeks.

During the study, the researchers recruited 73 people – aged between 70 and 90 and some with dementia – and split them into three groups.

The first group was made to sit around once a week in sets of five and reminisce about the old days such as childhood, weddings and family holidays, as well objects that could spark memories such as old-fashioned ink pots and hats.

After six weeks, the standard cognitive tests showed that the memory had improved by 12 per cent. Those suffering dementia saw an improvement of about eight per cent.

In contrast, the two other groups – one that was encouraged to play skittles – and another that was encouraged to have one on one chats showed very little improvement in their brain power.

“The people we were talking to were more than happy to bring up the war. It emerged as a very important part of their lives. As well as it improving their memory some people found it incredibly enjoyable,” the Telegraph quoted Prof Haslam, a neuropsychologist as saying.

“It doesn’t actually reverse dementia but it seems to make the most of their residual abilities,” she added.

Professor Alex Haslam, her husband, who was also carrying out research into social groups at the university, said the result were very significant.

“If you had a drug that could do that you would that you would make a lot of money. The drug in this case is the social group,” he said. (ANI)

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