When it comes to aging and doing well, a positive attitude matters. In fact, those who hold negative views of aging and the elderly may be exposing themselves to a self-fulfilling prophecy. As they describe it in the journal Psychology and Aging, researchers from the National Institutes of Health, Yale, and Johns Hopkins studied a unique….
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Whistleblowers — and Taxpayers — Win Lawsuit over Medicare Fraud
Here’s another story with a satisfying ending and the take-home lesson that it’s a bad idea to cheat taxpayers and abuse medical resources. A chain of hospices agreed to settle a lawsuit over its overbilling of Medicare, and driving up payments by providing care to patients for whom it wasn’t appropriate. St. Joseph Hospice, which….
Continue ReadingWhen Chemotherapy Makes You Feel Worse
Chemotherapy is a common treatment at many stages and kinds of cancer. Although it has been proved to prolong life significantly and sometimes cure the disease, sometimes, according to a study published last month in JAMA Oncology, it does more harm than good. The study, which was accompanied by an editorial, called into question the….
Continue ReadingMany Meds Can Increase Your Risk of Falling
The older we get, the frailer we get. We also lose strength and our sense of balance. All of those contribute to a greater likelihood that we’ll fall, which can be a life-ending event for many elderly people. Although fitness training can help older people maintain some strength and balance, certain medications can offset our….
Continue ReadingMedicare Recipients Live Longer and Their Care Costs Less … For Now
On its 50th birthday, Medicare is the one giving the gifts. According to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), older Americans who rely on Medicare live longer than they used to, and spend less time in the hospital. Also, the cost of a typical hospital stay has decreased….
Continue ReadingSix Reasons You Might Be Feeling Forgetful
Aging brings many unwelcome but normal challenges to health and fitness, including possible lapses in memory. But some such problems can be the result of common behaviors you can alter to improve your brain’s ability to remember things, and retrieve them more easily. Here, courtesy Harvard Health Publications, are six common contributors to memory impairment…..
Continue ReadingQ&A on Medicare’s End-of-Life Care
End-of-life medical care has come under sharp review recently as policymakers grapple with whether health-care professionals should be reimbursed for talking to patients about their treatment options. Planning for such care is fraught with difficulty. No one wants to discuss death and the infirmity that often surrounds it, but such discussions with doctors and families….
Continue ReadingMore Bad News for People Who Take Statins
When the guidelines for taking statins were changed last year, it made lots of noise. The revision for the drugs, which are prescribed to control blood cholesterol and prevent heart disease, classified millions more people as candidates for daily use. The new recommendation, by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, ignored….
Continue ReadingThe Mediterranean Diet Might Be Good for an Aging Brain
Like every other body part, the aging brain isn’t as proficient as it used to be; it’s not as adept at learning, reacting and remembering. But like other lifestyle choices, what you eat might have an effect on how well your brain continues to remember things. A new study published in the Journal of the….
Continue ReadingDialysis May Not Be the Best Choice for Older People with Kidney Failure
Dialysis is a life-saving process that filters impurities from the blood when the kidneys no longer are able to perform that vital function. But a lot of older people whose conditions require kidney dialysis are opting out, choosing a better quality of life over a longer life. A recent story in the New York Times….
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