An electronic sports (esports) center catering exclusively to seniors will open in the Japanese city of Kobe on July 2, reports DOT Esports . ISR Esports will only accept people 60 and older, including those who have never played a video game. Participants will first be introduced to basic gaming experiences, and then play what ISR Esports described as "full-blown esports titles." The center said it will comply with protection and prevention guidelines regarding the coronavirus, as those 65 years and older are at higher risk of infection. Game Centers have become quite popular among Japan's older population, with arcades becoming a gathering place for seniors who felt lonely and isolated. Meanwhile, an AARP study estimated that there were almost 51 million American gamers older than 50 last year, playing an average of five hours a week.

A study by University of Pennsylvania (Penn) researchers in JAMA Network Open estimates that long-term use of muscle relaxants has nearly tripled in the United States since 2005, reports the Pain News Network . The authors believe many doctors are now prescribing the drugs as a substitute for opioids for long-term pain management. "There are few studies on the short-term efficacy and safety of skeletal muscle relaxants, and almost no data on their long-term effects, so it is very concerning that patients, and particularly older adults, are using these drugs for an extended period of time," said Penn Professor Charles Leonard. "Providers seem to be reaching for them despite incomplete information on their potential benefits and risks." The researchers discovered that the number of new muscle relaxant prescriptions remained stable from 2015 to 2016 at about 6 million annually, but office visits for renewals of muscle relaxant prescriptions increased threefold, from 8.5 million in 2005 to 24.7 million in 2016. Moreover, 67 percent of people receiving renewals for muscle relaxants in 2016 were also taking opioid medication, despite a warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that co-prescribing the drugs could lead to respiratory depression and overdose. "For older adults . . . the message should be to avoid using muscle relaxants, especially when we consider the side effects and increased risk of falls and fractures, and to find alternatives for pain management," said Penn's Samantha Soprano.

A study in JAMA Neurology suggests that a just-discovered Alzheimer's gene, RBFOX1, may induce the first appearance of amyloid plaques in the brain, reports Medical Xpress . Certain RBFOX1 variants apparently increase the amount of protein fragments constituting these plaques, and may play a role in the deterioration of critical connections between neurons. The researchers explored the genomes of nearly 4,300 asymptomatic people whose positron-emission tomography images revealed amyloid deposits in the brain. Genetic analysis found a link between the manifestation of these deposits and GPOE, a known Alzheimer's gene, and RBFOX1. About 10 percent of study subjects had RBFOX1 variants associated with the emergence of amyloid deposition. Fewer amounts of RBFOX1 in the brain appeared to have a connection with increased amyloid and global cognitive decline. "By studying people with the earliest signs of Alzheimer's, we can find genes that are unequivocally related to the start of disease," said Columbia University's Richard Mayeux. "And these genes are more likely to lead to therapies that can prevent the disease from developing."

A study published in JAMA found that low to moderate alcohol consumption may improve cognitive function for white middle-aged or older adults, reports CNN . Low to moderate drinking was defined as less than eight drinks a week for women and less than 15 drinks a week for men. The researchers analyzed data on nearly 20,000 participants from the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study, who were predominately white, female, and 62 years old, on average. They were assigned cognitive tests starting in 1996 through 2008, and surveyed every other year for about nine years. In comparison with those who said they never drank, low to moderate drinking was linked to significantly higher cognition scores for mental status, word recall, and vocabulary over time, along with lower rates of decline in each of those areas. However, this cognitive benefit did not extend to African Americans, and these findings do not change most doctors' recommendations. "This is not a 'one size fits all' choice," said Richard Isaacson with the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical Center. "These decisions should be tailored based on body weight, for example, and also modified based on whether the person has a history of alcohol or substance abuse."

Wichita State University (WSU) in Kansas has added 10 courses to its popular lifelong learning classes for senior adults, reports KSNW . These classes will be launched this fall, with modifications to ensure safety during the pandemic. All in-person classes will be held at WSU's Metropolitan Complex to comply with social distancing, with virtual courses hosted on YouTube. "We have a real variety of classes, we have meteorology, geology, history," said WSU's Kim Moore. "This fall we are going to be offering a politics class because of the elections that are coming up. We have a how-to listen to jazz class so, we really the classes range in all topic areas throughout our six colleges here at the university." The classes will begin on Aug. 3, and residents 60 or older can attend for free. Persons younger than 60 years old can enroll if they pay regular tuition and fees.

Drugmaker Gilead Sciences announced that the coronavirus drug remdesivir will cost $3,120 for people with private insurance, with the amount paid out of pocket determined by insurance, income, and other factors, reports NBC News . "We're in uncharted territory with pricing a new medicine, a novel medicine, in a pandemic," said Gilead CEO Dan O'Day. "We believe that we had to really deviate from the normal circumstances" and assign the medication a price to ensure wide access rather than based exclusively on value to recipients. A U.S. government-led study found that remdesivir accelerated recovery time by 3 percent, or 11 days on average, versus 15 days for those only receiving usual care. Health officials have allocated the limited supply of remdesvir to states, but that agreement with Gilead will expire after September, while the government has obtained more than 500,000 additional courses to supply to hospitals through September. The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review said remdesivir would be cost-effective in a range of $4,580 to $5,080 if it saved lives, but recent news that a more affordable steroid called dexamethasone improves survival means remdesivir should be priced between $2,520 and $2,800. Gilead's pricing announcement provoked outrage from the consumer group Public Citizen because of the amount taxpayers invested toward the drug's development, totaling at least $70 million.

Experts are worried that older Americans are feeling "expendable" amid the coronavirus crisis due to ageism and other factors, reports Medical Xpress . York University Professor Gordon Flett cited "horror stories" around the world about the pandemic's impact on older people — especially in Spain, where staff in certain care communities abandoned residents, while communities in Lima, Peru, halted admissions of older people because their likelihood of survival was lower. Meanwhile, ageist messages have spread with claims that most COVID-19 fatalities are "only" among the older population, and that restarting the economy is prioritized. In a research review in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction , Flett suggested that "mattering" has protective benefits on top of things like "belonging" to a group. Studies have associated older adults' sense of mattering to reduced odds of depression and loneliness, and to better physical well-being. Flett said when people feel valued, they may be encouraged to take better care of themselves. He added that family, friends, and neighbors can help by reaching out.

A new International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) study published in Scientific Reports examined the prevalence of activity limitations among older adults in 23 low- and middle-income countries, to guide policymakers on the challenges of the world's aging population, reports News-Medical . "Just like high-income countries, low- and middle-income countries face a continuous increase in their share of older adults," said IIASA's Daniela Weber. "Up to now, we however did not know much about how people age in these countries." The authors analyzed health status based on the activity limitations of older adults across the world, and projected the population of men and women older than 50 in the examined countries. They were generally surprised to see similar health trends in these countries than in high-income nations. The forecasts also indicated a large variation in the proportion of older adults with physical limitations across the countries investigated. "It is important to raise awareness, not only about global issues pertaining to population aging, but also the importance of rigorous cross-national research and policy dialogue that will help address the challenges and opportunities of an aging world," concluded IIASA's Sergei Scherbov.

A study published in Neuron suggests that neurons that regularly remodel links are more vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease and die when remodeling goes astray, reports News-Medical . The researchers used a machine learning architecture that combined neuron type-specific mouse experiments with human studies. The investigators compared two types of neurons susceptible to Alzheimer's with five resistant types. The susceptible neurons exhibited processes related to remodeling connections with adjacent cells. The implication is that aging and the accrual of amyloid-beta can cause the remodeling process to go awry, creating tangles of tau proteins that cause neuron death. "The question now is whether we can somehow make these neurons more resistant," said Rice University Professor Vicky Yao. The team hopes to find other traits that make neurons vulnerable to Alzheimer's. "Identifying the molecular characteristics of neurons that are especially vulnerable to neurodegeneration is important both for the basic understanding of Alzheimer's and for future development of better diagnostic and treatment options," said Princeton University Professor Olga Troyanskaya.

Many older workers say they'll need to work longer because of the economic crisis, reports the New York Times . But that will be easier said than done. Between 2014 and 2016, just over half of workers who retired between ages 55 and 64 did so involuntarily because of ill health, family responsibilities, layoffs, and business closings, according to research by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research. The pandemic has already fueled a surge in early retirements, a report published recently by three economists shows. They found that among people who had left the labor force through early April, 60 percent said they were retired — up from 53 percent in January before the pandemic. The largest increase was among people over 65, but nearly half of this group were 50 to 65, noted report co-author Michael Weber, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.