Research
Irrelevant information? Older brains love it.
New research published this week in Psychological Science has shown that while older brains have more difficulty filtering out extraneous information than younger brains, they appear to make great use of this information.
Karen Campbell, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Toronto, working with the Rotman Institute, says “We found that older brains are not only less likely to suppress irrelevant information than younger brains, but they can link the relevant and irrelevant pieces of information together and implicitly transfer this knowledge to subsequent memory tasks.
Dr. Lynn Hasher, whose work at the Rotman Institute focuses on inhibitory control over the contents of working memory, explains the advantage of this process:
“This could be a silver lining to aging and distraction. Older adults with reduced attentional regulation seem to display greater knowledge of seemingly extraneous co-occurrences in the environment than younger adults. As this type of knowledge is thought to play a critical role in real world decision- making, older adults may be the wiser decision-makers compared to younger adults because they have picked up so much more information.”
Read the full article here.
No Comments »
Vitamin D for nursing home patients can reduce falls.
A new systematic review from the Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney in Ryde, Australia, has shown that giving people living in nursing facilities vitamin D can reduce the rate of falls. The Cochrane review, led by Dr. Ian Cameron examined 41 previous trials involving 25,422 older people, who were mostly women. 
“Five trials tested the effects of giving vitamin D to patients in nursing facilities, where it was found to be an effective measure for preventing falls. The researchers found that multifactorial interventions, which often incorporated exercise, medication, or environmental factors including appropriate equipment, reduced the risk of falls in hospitals. In nursing homes, the effects of multifactorial interventions were not significant overall. However, the researchers concluded that multifactorial interventions provided by multidisciplinary teams in these facilities may reduce the rate and risk of falls.”
Dr. Cameron points out the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach:”In our review, we saw limited evidence that these combined interventions work, but we could more confidently recommend them if they were delivered by a multidisciplinary team. Currently, there’s no one component of any of these programmes that stands out as more important than any other and we’re also missing data on whether increased supervision or new technologies such as alarm systems are of any benefit.”
Read the full article here.
In Halifax, there is the Geriatric Day Hospital and Falls Clinic. Click here for their information.
Do you know of any other falls prevention programs in Nova Scotia? Email us at info@cakens.com and we will include them in our links.
No Comments »
Rising Tide – new report on dementia issued by Alzheimer Society of Canada
The Alzheimer Society of Canada has released Rising Tide: the Impact of Dementia on Canadian Society, This is the final report of an Alzheimer Society project funded by Pfizer Canada, Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and RX&D. 
Currently in Canada, there are 103,700 new cases of dementia every year, or 1 every 5 minutes. This report suggests that by 2038, this will have risen to 257,800 new cases per year, or 1 every 2 minutes.
David Harvey, Principal Spokesperson for the Rising Tide project says “If nothing changes, this sharp increase in the number of people living with dementia will mean that by 2038, the total costs associated with dementia will reach $153 billion a year. This amounts to a massive cumulative total of $872 billion over this 30-year period.”
You can read the Alzheimer Society’s press release here, a summary of Rising Tide here and download the full report here.
Elderly people have the greatest risk for major depression.
Medical News Today reports that researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have unveiled results from a study that they say has pinpointed the identifying factors in who, among those 65+, will be at greatest risk for major depression. 
The researchers studied data from over 600 people aged 65+, who had no active diagnosis of depression. The subjects were given follow up interviews over a period of four years. Approximately 5 percent of the patients had an episode of major depression during that time.
The article reports report: “People with low-level depressive symptoms, who perceive that they have poor quality social support from other people, and with a past history of depression, were at particularly high risk to develop major depression within the one-to-four year time period of the study,” Lyness said. “This is good news, as we in the field are just learning how to prevent depression in particular high-risk groups. Future work will be able to test whether any of a variety of treatments – perhaps psychotherapy, perhaps medication, perhaps other things such as exercise – will help to prevent depression in persons suffering from the risks we identified in this study.”
Read the full article here.
No Comments »
Understanding the mechanisms of ageing – worth a Nobel Prize!
Three American scientists Elizabeth Blackburn (University of California, San Fransisco) , Carol Greider (Johns Hopkins University) and Jack Szostak (Harvard Medical School), have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.
Telomere
In short:
“Telomeres are the tails of chromosomes; they are an indicator of history and replicative potential of the cell. Research in the last three decades indicates that telomeres are key factors in several biological fields such as cancer and ageing. Because of the long lifespan of humans and their short telomeres, attrition in telomere length may be a major determinant of human ageing not only at cellular level, but also at organ and perhaps systemic levels. The research contributed to the understanding of how telomeres protect chromosomes from degradation and identified telomerase, the enzyme that preserves telomere length and integrity.” (read the full article here)
Recent studies carried out by the prize recipients have shown that the enzyme telomerase has restorative capabilities for telomeres and can help keep these cells in a healthy condition. Dr. Jean Pierre Baeyens, of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics says “…the ageing process remains a large domain of research and all mechanisms are not depicted yet. These recent discoveries are a real step forward to attract young scientist to the new fields of research and clinical practice in Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology.”
Click here to watch a video of the Nobel Prize announcement, with a short explanatory presentation of the work.
Some medications related to falls in elderly people.
Science Daily reports on recent work by researchers at the University of British Columbia which has highlighted the relationship between certain types of medications and falls in elderly people. As falls or complications arising from these are one of the leading causes of death of elderly people in western nations, understanding how many commonly prescribed medications can crate a dangerous situation reinforces “the need for judicious use of medications in elderly people at risk of falling,” says Carlo Merra, an associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at UBC. 
The Science Daily article reports: “Antidepressants showed the strongest statistical association with falling, possibly because older drugs in this class have significant sedative properties. Anti-psychotics/neuroleptics often used to treat schizophrenia and other psychoses and benzodiazepines such as valium were also significantly associated with falls.
Prescribing medications to seniors has increased substantially over the past decade, according to the study. For example, the BC Rx Atlas, recently published by UBC researchers, shows that more than one in seven people aged 80 or older filled at least one antidepressant prescription in 2006. In addition, determining which medication classes are associated with falls remains a challenge since seniors are often on multiple medications for multiple health conditions, with new drugs entering the market on a regular basis, says Marra.”
Read the complete article here.
No Comments »
New technology helps older patients monitor condition at home.
An article in today’s Washington Post describes some innovative programs designed to help seniors or those with chronic conditions monitor themselves at home – reducing travel and time in hospital as well as costs.
Juanita Wood transmits her blood pressure readings to a clinic at her retirement community where she lives. Her husband, Arthur, seen in the mirror, uses a similar device, though he also keeps a written tally. Photo: Washington Post
“Every morning at 10 a.m. sharp, Juanita Wood, 87, taps “okay” on a screen to start up a device that takes her blood pressure and transmits the information to her medical clinic. At 10:30 a.m., her husband, Arthur, 91, touch-starts his own device, neatly lined up next to hers. The machine calculates his blood pressure and weight and sends them off, along with a blood sugar count that he enters by hand.
The Woods, of Catonsville, Md., are participants in one of several pilot projects that home health-care providers, retirement communities and others are conducting to see if high-tech but simple devices can help doctors closely monitor aging patients at home in a way that will help control problems before they escalate and cut back on the need for costly long-term care and hospital admissions — especially repeat hospital visits for chronic conditions.”
Programs such as these are not designed for diagnosis – there is not doctor remotely assessing you. Instead, they are designed to help elderly patients stay on top of their own medical condition, and be alert to changes that could indicate a more serious problem.
Read the full article here.
No Comments »
Social Vulnerability in Elderly People
Recent work at the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit has shed light on the link between social vulnerability and mortality. 
Dr. Melissa Andrew, a geriatrician working at the research unit, describes social vulnerability as a variety of factors that make people susceptible to illness, disease, decline in their ability to do things for themselves, or even death. The factors can include low education, low income, lack of family supports, social isolation, not being able to participate in community activities, living in a community with high unemployment and having few opportunities for socializing.
This work on social vulnerability is of vital importance as it has shown that for each additional social vulnerability factor a person had, the likelihood of death increased 5-8%. Working with data from 7000+ Canadian over the age of 65, she has also shown that the older a person is, the higher their level of social vulnerability. Click here to read the work of Dr. Andrew and her colleagues at the open journal PLoS ONE.
The research unit has invested in a series of videos to explain the importance and impact of their work in areas such as social vulnerability, dementia, and frailty. You can see all the videos here.
No Comments »
Aerobic exercise benefits for older adults.
Dr. Kenneth Madden, speaking at the 2009 Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, has unveiled new research that demonstrates the benefits of aerobic exercise for older adults. Dr. Madden’s work studied a group of adults between the ages of 65-83 with controlled Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high blood cholesterol. Three months of exercise resulted in an improvement in the elasticity of the arteries of the group that performed the activity compared to those who didn’t exercise.
“The subjects were divided into two groups to either receive three months of vigorous physical activity (one hour, three times per week) or to get no aerobic exercise at all. Subjects were classified as sedentary at the beginning of the study but gradually increased their fitness levels until they were working at 70 per cent of their maximum heart rate, using treadmills and cycling machines. They were supervised by a certified exercise trainer.”
While some may worry about the high level of activity engaged in by the participants, Dr Madden says “There seems to be a knee-jerk reluctance to getting these older adults to exercise yet we used a vigorous level of activity and didn’t have any trouble keeping participants in our study. They enjoyed the activity. People always underestimate what older adults can do.”
He also notes, however, that many people need a kick start to motivate them into a regular fitness program. In aid of this, you can visit the Nova Scotia Department of Health Promotion and Protection’s Senior section here, and find your local YMCA here. You can visit the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s website here.
No Comments »
The New Science of Grief.
For many years there has been a generally accepted idea that when grieving, we pass through five distinct phases: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages sprang from the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and were originally based on her work with terminally ill patients, but have been accepted to apply to the grief of those suffering the loss of someone important in their life. 
Into this conventional wisdom steps George A. Bonanno, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Chair of the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and his new work on the process of grief. In his new book, The Other Side of Sadness, Bonanno contends that this model does not account for the complexity of the process nor the resiliency of the human mind in coping with loss. He contends that we are hardwired to deal with grief, and for most people it is a natural process that they accomplish on their own:
“Most bereaved people get better on their own, without any kind of professional help. They may be deeply saddened, they may feel adrift for some time, but their life eventually finds its way again, often more easily than they thought possible. This is the nature of grief. This is human nature.”
The Other Side of Sadness is available online in Canada at Chapters.
Grief and and bereavement support services are available in Halifax Regional Municipality here.
For a list of services across Nova Scotia, go here.
No Comments »