A study from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine examined the relationship between opioid use and driving among older adults, reports EurekAlert . "It's known that the side effects of opioid medications can compromise driving abilities, and we wanted to find out more about the current relationship between the two among an older population," said University of Colorado Anschutz's Emmy Betz. The authors examined data on 2,990 participants 65 to 79 years old being monitored for five years. Of the 2,949 participants with medication data, 169 reported currently taking an opioid, and having a higher self-reported level of pain in the past week. Older drivers currently taking an opioid were more likely to self-regulate and reduce their driving and to report lower self-rated driving ability than younger drivers. Older adults with lower incomes also were more likely to use opioids, but this could be because of a lesser ability to access alternative pain treatment like massage, physical therapy, and acupuncture. "It's encouraging that older adults appear to regulate their driving as a way to mitigate the negative effects of opioid medications," said Betz. "However, future research should look more closely at socioeconomic factors related to opioid use among older adults, as well as the effects of the painful medical conditions for which the opioids are being taken."

A study on active aging at the University of Jyväskylä in the Journals of Gerontology: Series A explored movement that surpasses the intensity of preferred walking speed, reports Medical Xpress , "By measuring their preferred walking speed we were able to assess the time that our participants exercised more strenuously than what is their usual exertion level and what is beyond their comfort zone," said Jyväskylä's Laura Karavirta. Participants achieved 62 minutes of activity, on average, beyond the intensity of their preferred walking speed, and this amount of activity was similar among 75-, 80-, and 85-year-olds, regardless of age. "The new method enables us to investigate physical activity as individual behavior, which is not influenced by fitness level," noted Karavirta. All adults are generally recommended a weekly minimum of 150 minutes of at least moderate intensity physical activity, defined as exceeding three times the energy consumption of rest. "For most young adults, it feels easy and corresponds to slow walking but for some older adults it may be the hardest effort they can perform," said Karavirta.

A study in Alzheimer's and Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment, and Disease Monitoring found that older adults with both hearing and visual impairment have a nearly 90 percent higher risk for developing dementia, reports United Press International . The researchers enrolled more than 2,000 people 65 and older, and monitored them for eight years. Nearly 23 percent of the cohort either had hearing or visual impairment and just over 5 percent had dual sensory impairment. The latter condition was associated with an 86 percent higher risk for dementia compared with no sensory impairments. Moreover, 28.8 percent of those with dual sensory impairment were diagnosed with dementia, versus 16.9 percent of those with one sensory impairment and 14.3 percent of those with no sensory impairment. Participants with dual sensory impairment also were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than those without. "Evaluation of vision and hearing in older adults may predict who will develop dementia and Alzheimer's," said Phillip H. Hwang at the University of Washington School of Public Health.

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association claims that older adults with healthy hearts would likely benefit from taking a cholesterol-lowering statin, according to U.S. News & World Report . Heart disease-free persons 75 and older prescribed a statin saw a 25 percent lower risk of morality from any cause and a 20 percent lower risk of heart-related death. "Based on these data, age is not a reason to not prescribe statins," said Ariela Orkaby at the VA Boston Healthcare System. The researchers analyzed data from more than 300,000 veterans 75 or older who used VA health are services between 2002 and 2012 — none of whom had had a heart attack, stroke, or other heart problem. More than 57,000 began taking statins during that period, and their risk of heart-related death was significantly lower than those not using statins. These benefits persisted for veterans at advanced ages, including those 90 or older, and also were strong among those with dementia. In 2018, guidelines that previously recommended discontinuing statin therapy at age 75 were amended to recategorize statins as a reasonable choice for people older than 75 without a life-limiting disease such as cancer or organ failure. Mount Sinai Hospital's Mary Ann McLaughlin said the new study indicates that this revision was the right course of action.

A secondary analysis published in JAMA Ophthalmology found that visual impairment may increase older women's risk for dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), reports the U.S. National Institute on Aging . The researchers examined data on 1,061 community-dwelling older women, 66 to 84 years, enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Sight Examination and WHI Memory Study. They quantified visual impairment at three thresholds — worse than 20/40, 20/80, or 20/100 — and measured self-reported survey responses about vision impairment. Of all the enrollees, 183 women had objective vision impairment and 206 women exhibited self-reported vision impairment. The risk of dementia and MCI was higher among women with vision impairment than those without, with more severe visual impairment associated with a greater risk of cognitive impairment. The highest risk for dementia was among women with vision impairment of 20/100 or worse at baseline, followed by 20/80 or worse, and 20/40 or worse. No association between self-reported visual impairment and an increase in dementia risk was observed.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has endorsed two Lysol disinfectant products as effective against the novel coronavirus and will allow the company to label them as such, reports the New York Daily News . The agency announced that Lysol Disinfectant Spray and Lysol Disinfectant Max Cover Mist can "safely and effectively kill" the virus on surfaces as demonstrated by laboratory testing. The EPA had previously listed over 400 products that were effective against "harder-to-kill" viruses than the novel coronavirus, but this marks the first time the agency has tested a product specifically against it. The EPA intends to approve additional products in weeks to come. "EPA is committed to identifying new tools and providing accurate and up-to-date information to help the American public protect themselves and their families from the novel coronavirus," stated EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.

A recent Nulab poll of 1,000 employed Americans found that nearly a third are planning to leave their job within the next year due to actions taken by their employers as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, reports The Ladders . About two out of five respondents had a positive opinion of how their company handled the response to the crisis, but 32 percent said the response was so bad that they will seek employment elsewhere. Baby boomers had the most positive opinions about their employers' responses, with 47 percent of respondents expressing their approval while 17 percent were negative. Essential service workers had the most negative reaction to their employer's response, while 73 percent of respondents said they felt safe in their current work environment despite other studies saying that workers could be reluctant to return to work.

Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana announced that the state's Department of Public Health and Human Services will order all assisted living and nursing communities to test all employees and residents before allowing any more visitors, reports the Montana Free Press . He said the emergency directive will give the state "stronger enforcement" authority to make sure communities are performing adequate testing to allow visitation and prevent outbreaks among residents. The order requires all communities to test all staff and residents once, and then regularly perform surveillance testing of employees. "By guaranteeing the testing is being conducted on a regular basis, we can ensure that any evidence of the virus in a community is caught early on and mitigated before it spreads further," Bullock said. His announcement came hours after Yellowstone County health officials and managers at the Canyon Creek Memory Care Community in Billings reported that a COVID-19 outbreak had infected 43 residents and 15 staffers. Bullock noted that Montana had previously encouraged all nursing home and assisted living communities to voluntarily test all employees and residents, with the state covering the cost. "The purpose of this rule is to help prevent what's happened at Canyon Creek," he stated.

A new pilot study of a training model to help primary care nurses better care for persons with dementia is being conducted with a $54 million grant from the U.S. National Institute on Aging, reports News-Medical . McLean Hospital's Brent P. Forester said the pilot will provide condition-specific training to nurses in the Mass General Brigham system who are part of care teams treating medically complicated individuals with dementia. "We are going to modify existing training modules so that we can train nurses to be dementia care providers who can help with assessment, management, and coordination of care while providing support for family care partners," he said. Forester added that he and his colleagues pledged to design a new model to better help persons with dementia and their families, as well as doctors and nurses, based on a model originally studied at the University of California, San Francisco. This model "reduced emergency room visits, healthcare costs, and improved quality of life for patients and caregivers because of improved efforts at diagnosis and treatment of dementia and support of care partners by the primary care team," Forester noted. Crucial to the study is training for primary care nurse managers on telephone-based collaborative dementia care. Forester said by using the Care Ecosystem model, remote care could reduce unnecessary emergency room visits and behavioral symptoms for dementia patients, as well as enhance quality of life. "Part of our training will help nurses be attuned to why coordination of care is especially important for people with dementia and how better coordination might reduce some of the complications," he declared.

A study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience suggests that the older a person is, the less likely he or she is to share memories, or describe them in as much detail as their younger counterparts do, reports Psych Central . University of Arizona (UArizona) researchers explored the issue by electronically "eavesdropping" on 102 cognitively healthy older adults' conversations "in the wild" with a smartphone app, rather than under laboratory conditions. Older individuals shared fewer memories, and were less detailed in describing them the older they were. "There are a number of regions in the brain that seem to play an important role in how often we think about our personal past or future," said UArizona Professor Matthew Grilli. "These brain areas tend to show change with older age, and the idea is that because of these changes, older adults might reflect less on their personal past and future when they're talking with other people." Grilli added that recalling and sharing memories can help older people connect with others, guide planning and decision-making, and help attain meaning in other life events. "One of the reasons we're really interested in better tracking cognitive decline is because we're learning that diseases like Alzheimer's are impacting cognition probably decades before obvious symptoms arise," he said. "The idea that we can develop tools that can track change earlier is intriguing, and it will be important to see if smartphone apps can do that."