Wow! You have to read this! It's very interesting!

Mental Illness in Seniors Hits Healthcare System Hard
Aging adults with mental illness have significantly higher rates of healthcare utilization than their mentally healthy peers, new research shows.

An analysis of comorbidity levels and healthcare utilization in older adults with lifelong, serious mental illness shows that these patients have higher rates of emergency care, longer hospital stays, are more likely to fall, and have alcohol and substance abuse problems compared with mentally healthy control individuals.

"Our study illustrates the continuing vulnerability of seriously mentally ill patients as they grow older," Hugh C. Hendrie, MB, ChB, DSc, geriatric psychiatrist and health services researcher from the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine and Center for Aging Research, both in Indianapolis, told Medscape Medical News.

"An integrated healthcare system that addresses both their medical and psychosocial needs will be required to care for these patients whose numbers are increasing by the year," Dr. Hendrie added.
Iqbal "Ike" Ahmed, MD, geriatric psychiatrist from University of Hawaii and Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, who was not involved in the study, agrees. "The older, and younger, mentally ill populations who often have comorbid medical and psychiatric illnesses beg for integrated care."

I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO DO THIS: "Virtual reality games can improve cognitive decline and are better than traditional exercise"

(R) ANNE ROBBS, Columnist & Editor
MSnewsChannel.com

(L) MARY JANE CRIST
Chief Executive,
Barrow Neurological Foundation

There is research now claiming that virtual reality games can improve cognitive decline and are better than traditional exercise.   OK, ditch than exercise bike and invest in WII or PlayStation Move consoles with games like WII fit, bowling and cyber cycling.  These so-called “excergames” tend to increase the appeal of exercise by shifting away from some of the unpleasant aspects of working out and toward motivating features such as competition and 3-D scenery.  It’s fun while improving your body as well as you brain!

“We anticipated that seniors would enjoy cybercycling, which they did, but we did not anticipate such a robust and significant cognitive effect from cybercycling compared with traditional exercise,” lead investigator Cay Anderson-Hanley, PhD, from Union College, Schenectady, New York reported. “This gives us hope that more can be done to boost participation in exercise and increase the benefit of a workout through innovative excergames.”

Trials were completed on seniors and it showed that exercise can make a meaningful difference in brain health later in your life as well as yielding additional cognitive benefit.  In the study, older adults who cybercycled 2 to 3 times a week for 3 months had significantly greater cognitive benefit for the same effort as those who rode a traditional bike.  One explanation for the greater benefit found with cybercycling compared with traditional cycling is the added mental exercise required like navigating a 3-D landscape, anticipating turns and competing with others required additional focus, expanded divided attention and decision making.

This is hopeful for older adults since researchers have shown that slowing the onset of dementia by 1 year through excersice and diet can decrease the number of the 8 million people expected to be diagnosed in the US by 2050.

So pick up that remote control, get your friends together and play your heart out.  You can play by sitting or standing but play.  You will discover a new way to have a party!

xoxox
Anne

I'M SHARING THIS WITH EVERYONE BECAUSE IT'S A BIT SCARY!!!

Older patients who undergo anesthesia and surgery have a significantly increase

d risk for dementia, a large population-based study shows.

Investigators at Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan found that patients older than 50 years who underwent anesthesia for the first time had nearly a 2-fold increased risk for dementia, mainly Alzheimer's disease, compared with nonanesthetized patients.

"The results of our nationwide population-based study suggest that patients who undergo anesthesia and surgery may be at increased risk of developing dementia. Anesthesia and surgery are inseparable in clinical settings. Thus, it is difficult to establish whether the increased risk of dementia development we observed was attributable to the anesthesia per se, the surgical process, or both," principal investigator Jong-Ling Fuh, MD, said in a statement.

The study was published online July 25 in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Although generally considered safe, there is growing concern that anesthetic drugs may have neurodegenerative complications.

The investigators point out that in vivo studies and imaging studies have shown that "inhaled anesthetic agents can promote amyloid β peptide (Aβ) peptide oligomerisation and enhance Aβ-induced neurotoxicity."

Other potential mechanisms of anesthetic-induced neurotoxicity include calcium dysregulation.

The researchers note that postoperative confusion/decline is generally thought to be short-lived, with normal cognition returning within a few days. However, they add that in some cases, it can last for weeks.

Using data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research database, the researchers retrospectively examined whether the risk for dementia increased after surgery with anesthesia. They also looked at possible associations among age, mode of anesthesia, type of surgery, and risk for dementia. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL STORY

THIS ARTICLE ON ASPIRIN CAUGHT MY EYE FOR MY COLUMN!

An Aspirin Every Other Day May Help Reduce Colon Cancer Among Women

Women who took aspirin every other day as part of a massive study had a lower rate of colon cancer after 15 years compared with women who didn’t follow this aspirin regimen, according to results published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

But colon cancer rates were the same after 10 years of study, suggesting that there may be a long lag before any cancer-protective effects of regular aspirin use appear. In addition, the women who took aspirin had higher rates of gastrointestinal bleeding than their counterparts.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY ON ASPIRIN

OH NO! I CAN'T GO TO SLEEP WITHOUT MY SNACK!

Little and Late Sleep Linked to Higher Calorie Consumption and Weight Gain

It looks like catching only a few hours of sleep contributes to weight gain because burning the midnight oil is often accompanied by snacking. The finding appears online today in Sleep, the journal published by the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. READ MORE

I LOVE THIS BECAUSE WHO WANTS TO GO OUTSIDE WHEN IT'S 110

'Exergaming' Helps Older Adults Improve Cognitive Function

Virtual reality–enhanced exercise can delay cognitive decline more
than traditional exercise, report investigators. The technique combines physical training with a computer-simulated environment and interactive videogame features.

Woman viewing 3-dimensional landscape while cybercycling.
Virtual reality–enhanced exercise games such as the Wii Fit and PlayStation Move have become popular and tend to increase the appeal of exercise. These so-called "exergames" have the potential to increase fitness by shifting attention away from some of the aversive aspects of working out, and toward motivating features such as competition and 3-dimensional scenery.

In this multisite cluster randomized trial, investigators compared a new approach using this concept, called "cybercycling," with the standard stationary bike.

I'M BUYING COCCOA TO HELP MY MIND STAY YOUNG!

Anne Robbs, Columnist & Editor,
MSnewsChannel.com

NEW STUDY: Cocoa, Even With Few Flavonoids, Boosts Cognition

Drinking cocoa, whether rich in flavonoids or not, appears to boost the effect of blood flow on neuronal activity in the brain, known as neurovascular coupling (NVC).

A new study shows not only that drinking flavonoid-rich or flavonoid-poor cocoa improves NVC but also that higher NVC is associated with better cognitive performance and greater cerebral white matter structural integrity in elderly patients with vascular risk factors.

As researchers search for ways to detect dementia at the earliest possible stage, the study results could pave the way for using NVC as a biomarker for vascular function in those at high risk for dementia, said lead author Farzaneh A. Sorond, MD, PhD, Department of Neurology, Stroke Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.