How interesting to read about the research Effect of Music-Based Multitask Training on Gait, Balance, and Fall Risk in Elderly People (abstract), an article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The article is not freely available from the medical journal, so to read it you will need to speak with a librarian or go to … Continue reading
Filed under medical research …
Medical Histories Support Aging Parents and Their Families
What is more important for the personal health of an individual –a family history taken by a physician or genetic testing? According to an Associated Press article published in the Washington Post, while genetic testing has important uses, people should be aware that a thorough family history taken by a physician is what Cleveland Clinic geneticist, … Continue reading
Can We Walk More and Help Our Aging Parents Do the Same?
Read The Pedometer Test: Americans Take Fewer Steps, an article by Tara Parker-Pope published in the October 19 , 2010 New York Times Well Blog. Parker-Pope describes a study, in which adults wore pedometers for two days as they went about their daily activities. In the study, Pedometer-Measured Physical Activity and Health Behaviors in U.S. Adults … Continue reading
Senior Falls: Different Types – Different Interventions
If you have aging parents who fall — and most of us have some experience with parent falls — read the article about senior falling in the September 9, 2010 Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. On its website (not active in January 2012) , the Mobilize Boston Study organization that conducted the research states that, “The purpose of the … Continue reading
Aging Parents: AD8 – More Effective Alzheimer’s Screening
E-Max Health reports on an article, Relationship of Dementia Screening Tests with Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease (abstract), published online by the journal Brain. The October 10, 2010 article is free, but to get the text file it’s necessary to sign up for a login name and password at the journal website. In a longitudinal study … Continue reading
Physical Capability and Aging
Research published on September 10, 2010 by British Medical Journal (BMJ), Objectively Measured Physical Capability Levels and Mortality: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, re-examined a range of published studies that looked at the physical capabilities of older adults. Conducting a meta-analysis, which is a statistical method for examining multiple studies and pooling the results, researchers reviewed results … Continue reading
Aging Mothers-Adult Daughters: Dreams of Chocolate
Just about everyone dreams of eating chocolate. Well, not everyone. My husband is someone who really doesn’t care for it that much. But recent research brings some interesting news for the rest of us — a little indulgence may be OK. According to an August 16, 2010 study, Chocolate Intake and Incidence of Heart Failure: … Continue reading
Calcium Supplements? To Take or Not to Take?
Calcium supplements are a part of a daily regimen for many aging parents and for adult children. Most of these adults take calcium supplements to build stronger bones and avoid osteoporosis. However, new peer-reviewed research suggests that the benefits of taking calcium may be outweighed by increased risk of cardiovascular events. The July 29th edition … Continue reading
Education and Dementia Risk
New dementia research conducted at the University of Cambridge finds that the brains of people with more education appear to be better equipped to deal with the effects of dementia. The announcement from the university reviews a number of past brain research results that connect education level with dementia, and then describes the new research appearing … Continue reading
Dementia and Alzheimer’s: What’s the Difference?
At the Alzheimer’s Reading Room a June post, What’s the Difference Between Alzheimer’s and Dementia?, by Dr. Robert Stern, explains differences and clears up some common misconceptions about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. A link at the end of the piece leads to the article’s original source, the ADC Bulletin, a newsletter publication of the Boston … Continue reading
Healthy Aging – Our Health Histories: Deja-vu?
Yesterday I ruminated on healthy aging in my post, Thoughts on Aging: Boomers and Aging Parents, and today one of my Google alerts — one way I discover interesting information to post on this blog — pulled up a fascinating article from the New York Times. On first glance I thought it was recently published. … Continue reading
Aging Parents: NIH Senior Health
The NIH Senior Health site, developed by the National Institute on Aging and the National Library of Medicine, maintains a huge library of videos. According the website, the topics are chosen to “offer up-to-date medical information, tips for healthy living, and inspiring stories of older adults who are coping with diseases or conditions of aging.” … Continue reading
Three Medical Reference Sites for Aging Parents
The other day I asked some questions about a particular medication that has been prescribed for one of my parents. When we searched for information on the web, I realized that my parents’ computer needed permanent bookmarks to three reliable health and medical information sites: Medline Plus Mayo Clinic WebMD All of my health and … Continue reading
Aging Research at 11% Tells Only Part of NIH Story
Despite Aging Baby Boomers, N.I.H. Devotes Only 11 Percent to Elderly Studies, appears in the June 28, 2010 New York Times. I tend to agree with Dr. Francis Collins, NIH head, who points out that the 11 percent does not take into consideration research conducted on the conditions such as diabetes and heart disease — health problems … Continue reading
Aging Parents, Aging Boomers, Shingles Vaccinations
Shingles is an illness we all need to think about — aging parents, adult children, and anyone who is approaching a 60th birthday. In yesterday’s New York Times Health section (June 10, 2010), Dr. Pauline Chen writes about the expense of the shingles vaccine and how the cost has contributed to a low number of people age … Continue reading
Aging Parents, Diseases of Aging, and Sodium!
The May 30, 2010, the New York Times published an article, The Hard Sell on Salt, about our high sodium diets, the reluctance to find ways to lower the amount of salt in food, and how the food industry continues to push for its inclusion in our foods, all despite documented risks to our health in … Continue reading
More on the National Library of Medicine: for Boomers and Aging Parents
In my last post I wrote about the tutorial at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) designed to help people learn how to evaluate health information on the web. NLM, one of 27 institutes and centers at the National Institutes of Health, provides much more on its website, information that is especially useful to families seeking … Continue reading
Aging Parents, Adult Children, Everyone: Evaluating Web Health Info
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) web site features a medical research user’s guide, Evaluating Internet Health Information: A Tutorial from the National Library of Medicine, with step-by-step techniques to ensure that the information you discover is good and reliable. The narrator speaks slowly and clearly. A link at the end takes the user to a … Continue reading
Late-Stage Dementia, Hospitals, and Feeding Tubes
A professor at the Brown University Medical School was the lead author on a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Hospital Characteristics Associated With Feeding Tube Placement in Nursing Home Residents With Advanced Dementia (abstract). Joan M. Teno, MD, used Medicare data from 2000 to 2007 to evaluate how … Continue reading
Causation vs. Association – the Basics
To those of us who are not scientists or epidemiologists two of the most confusing concepts in the universe are association and causation. Many of us are helping parents age as gracefully as possible in the midst of devastating diseases and are deeply frustrated that we cannot sort out the factors associated with an illness … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age 