The United States is not adequately prepared for a tipping point in senior care throughout the next decade, reports Forbes . The first of the country's 77 million baby boomers will reach age 80 in the next five years, which means their frailty will dramatically escalate and raise pressure for long-term care support services. Millions of boomers who reach 85 by 2030 will add to the strain. The Urban Institute's Rich Johnson determined that someone who dies between 65 and 74 will have a 50-50 chance of requiring a high level of personal care, while 66 percent of those who live to 85 will need such support. Despite these alarming trends, most U.S. families have not prepared for the financial costs or discussed how they will deal with their parents or spouses' needs. The U.S. government is even less ready, as Medicare is only now starting to create limited benefits for home-based long-term care, which are generally available only for those participating in Medicare Advantage managed care plans. Observers warn that it is now too late to engineer a national financing system for boomers without relying on a major transfer of income from working-age Americans.

The state of New Hampshire has started requiring training for the care of people with Alzheimer's disease and dementia in some homes and communities, reports the Associated Press . New Hampshire's budget included new training mandates that have established minimum conditions for staffers in residential homes or community-based programs with people who have dementia. New Hampshire, the second-fastest aging state in the nation, currently has more than 25,000 residents with Alzheimer's. Heather Carroll with the Alzheimer's Association in New Hampshire said the revisions will help residents ensure that "professionals caring for their loved ones with Alzheimer's and dementia receive proper training."

Maine became the fifth U.S. state to require private health insurers to cover hearing aids on Jan. 1, reports WGMA-TV 13 . Under the law, private health insurers' MaineCare Medicaid program must cover hearing aids up to $3,000 per ear every three years. A 2014 report by Maine's Bureau of Insurance estimated that up to 173,000 Maine residents have some degree of hearing impairment. State law previously required coverage for children under 18 years old and capped the insurer's cost at $1,400. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association says Maine joins Arkansas, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island in mandating hearing aid coverage for both children and adults.

According to the FBI, seniors face the highest risk for identity theft and phishing by online fraudsters, reports KFOX TV . The U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging recently estimated that American seniors lose $2.9 billion each year to scams, while the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau calculated that the average financial loss among people 50 to 59 was $13,400. Persons 60 to 69 lost $22,700 on average while those 70 to 79 lost $45,300. Americans 80 and older lost an average $39,200. Seniors often will not disclose falling victim to scams out of fear that their loved ones will think they cannot keep track of their finances. Preventive recommendations for seniors' families include keeping in touch to avoid isolation, closely monitoring their finances, warning them about fraudulent charities and sweepstakes, and providing technological aid when needed. The AARP Fraud Watch Network Hotline, the Federal Trade Commission, and the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center are resources for families who suspect their loved ones have been targeted by online scams.

Australian researchers are hoping an experimental dementia vaccine will lead to human trials and emerge as the breakthrough of the 2020s, reports ABC News Radio . Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky reported successful drug tests on mice, which had been genetically engineered to develop dementia and Alzheimer's. "We were able to prevent the memory loss in the mice, and obviously the next step is to take this into human clinical trials," Petrovsky said. He developed the vaccine, while the Institute for Molecular Medicine and the University of California are spearheading and funding research. "With the vaccine, what we're doing is getting the immune system to make antibodies that can recognize . . . abnormal clumps of protein and will actually pull them out of the system and break them down," Petrovsky explained. He added that in animals, the vaccine can prevent the development of memory loss by administering the drug before protein clumps start accruing, "but we can also show that even when we give it after the animals have proteins, we can actually get rid of the abnormal proteins."

A study in Age and Ageing said widespread misconceptions about hydration partly explain why dehydrated older adults hospitalized with a stroke are more than twice as likely to suffer impairment afterward, reports Medical News Today . "Many do not link hydration to good health and are unsure of how much to drink," said University College London's Cini Bhanu. The researchers interviewed 24 generally healthy people 75 or older living in their own homes in north and central London, along with nine caregivers. A number of participants were confused about the recommended level of fluids necessary to maintain healthy hydration, with doctors currently recommending older women drink eight glasses of water daily, while men should drink 10. Moreover, people often believe adequate hydration is achievable only by drinking water, when coffee, tea, soda, and even some types of alcohol can make sustaining hydration easier. Bhanu added that it is wrong "that thirst is a reliable indicator of when you need to drink, when this may no longer be the case for older people." The study also suggested older adults may worry about the stigma associated with losing bladder control, which prompts some to avoid liquids. "Education should target what fluids count, the poor reliability of thirst perception in later life, and when fluid intake may need to be deliberately increased (e.g., acute illness) and how this can be achieved," the research concluded.

Drugmakers announced plans to increase prices on more than 200 drugs in the United States, reports Reuters . Almost all the price hikes will be below 10 percent, and about half will be between 4 percent and 6 percent — with a median price increase of roughly 5 percent. Many branded drugmakers have vowed to keep their U.S. list price boosts below 10 percent annually. Pfizer plans to raise prices on more than 50 drugs, including its cancer drug Ibrance and rheumatoid arthritis medication Xeljanz. According to Pfizer spokesperson Amy Rose, the company intends to increase the list prices on about 27 percent of its U.S. portfolio by an average of 5.6 percent. She added that 43 percent of the drugs to be hiked are sterile injectibles, and many of those hikes are less than $1 per product. Meanwhile, GlaxoSmithKline will raise prices on more than 30 drugs, including respiratory medications delivered through its Ellipta inhaler and the cancer drug Zejula, with increases ranging from 1 percent to 5 percent. Manatt Health adviser Ian Spatz suggested drugmakers could be keeping these price hikes relatively low to avoid political ire.

An AARP survey found over 10 million Americans age 50 and up became active video gamers over the past three years, reports CBS News . Senior U.S. gamers totaled about 51 million in 2019, up from 40 million in 2016. This increase is partly driven by people who use gaming to spend quality time with grandchildren, but they also find video games appealing for their fun and intellectual challenge. "It's stress release, connecting socially, and staying mentally sharp," said AARP's Alison Bryant. The survey estimated that women comprised the largest increase in older gamers. AT Kearney's Greg Portell said video games that offer a sense of online community and interaction are popular with older players as a relief from isolation. According to AARP, Americans older than 50 spent $3.5 billion on video games and accessories in the first half of 2019, up from $523 million during the same period in 2016. They spent $70 on average when purchasing video games. Portell expects major game developers will cater to seniors over the next decade, perhaps by integrating voice controls and sensors.

Pittsburgh's Port Authority has issued about 27,000 photo ConnectCards for Pennsylvania seniors to use for free transit rides instead of their Medicare cards Jan. 1, but the agency will not know if everyone who should have the cards has received them until after the new year, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Starting Jan. 1, seniors who previously showed drivers their Medicare cards will have to tap the ConnectCard with their photo on the fare box to get free transit. This is due to a revised rule requiring seniors to use either a card with their photo or the state-issued cardboard transit cards. Medicare cards will no longer be accepted for free rides because the state Department of Transportation said too many seniors permitted people under 65 to use their Medicare cards to get free rides. "The fact that we have processed 27,000-plus cards is a testament to the state legislators who want to distribute them through their offices, at senior centers, and at community events," said authority spokesperson Adam Brandolph.

A brain imaging study of tau protein tangles in Science Translational Medicine can reliably predict the site of future brain atrophy in people with Alzheimer's a year or more in advance — far more than analysis of amyloid plaques, reports Medical Xpress . The researchers used tau-based positron emission tomography (PET), suggesting the technology could expedite Alzheimer's clinical trials and improve personalized medicine. "Tau PET imaging predicted not only how much atrophy we would see, but also where it would happen," said University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center Professor Gil Rabinovici. "These predictions were much more powerful than anything we've been able to do with other imaging tools, and add to evidence that tau is a major driver of the disease." The researchers found overall tau levels in study participants' brains at the beginning predicted how much degeneration would occur by the time of their follow-up visit. Furthermore, local patterns of tau accumulation predicted subsequent atrophy at the same sites with more than 40 percent accuracy, while baseline amyloid-PET scans correctly predicted just 3 percent of future degeneration. "The ability to sensitively track tau accumulation in living persons would for the first time let clinical researchers seek out treatments that can slow down or even prevent the specific pattern of brain atrophy predicted for each individual," Rabinovici concluded.