A growing number of health technology startups are drawing venture capital with their efforts to combat senior loneliness, reports FierceHealthcare . One startup in Miami, Papa, was founded by Andrew Parker to tackle this problem with a "grandkids on demand" service, which matches aging seniors with college students. The California-based Mon Ami startup, which offers a similar service, recently announced a $3.4 million seed financing round. "I saw a huge opportunity to improve the way that we age, to bring more vibrancy, delight, and joy and the small things that make life worth living back into the aging and caregiving industry," said Mon Ami co-founder Joy Zhang. Such firms provide face-to-face engagement, while others are utilizing technology such as voice-enabled devices to address senior loneliness. Papa will use the proceeds from its financing to offer its services to a wider population of older adults through alliances with more insurance plans and employee benefit providers. Next year, it plans to broaden its service footprint to 25 states. Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has amended rules to allow services like Papa to be covered by Medicare Advantage plans. "We are now mainly going through large health plans, health systems, and employers as a benefit," Parker noted.

Several studies found more frequent use of sleep medication is more likely to lead to memory and thinking troubles in people in their 60s and 70s, reports KDKA 2 . "Sleep disturbance can be the first sign of a neurodegenerative disorder," says Allegheny Health Network neuropsychologist Carol Schramke. "People chronically deprived of sleep are more likely to have high blood pressure, to have problems with diabetes, to have other health problems that also increase your risk of developing dementia." Certain sleep medications can disrupt the brain chemicals vital to thinking, concentration, and memory. Researchers believe the best course of action is to get good sleep, without medication if possible. "If you can improve your sleep, get good sleep, get good exercise, which improves your sleep, and also improves your cardiovascular health, all of those things together will really improve your health and reduce your risk of dementia," Schramke says.

AARP Foundation has launched an online resource to help older adults and their families save money incrementally, reports PR Newswire . More than 5,000 people have joined the MySavingsJar program since its beta launch in May. AARP Foundation President Lisa Marsh Ryerson said the new platform "offers practical tips and local resources to support a savings habit and help older adults start building up financial reserves." The free program supplies social support, resources, and coaching to help people save more and better control their expenses. Participants can enroll to join an online community, establish their personal online savings jar at zero cost, complete community challenges, and accumulate short-term savings to help secure their financial future.

A study by Binghamton University researchers suggests a connection between low blood pressure and dementia, reports The Conversation . The researchers used a quantitative assessment tool for cognitive function in people older than 50, with a high school degree or higher educational level. The team found low resting diastolic blood pressure is remarkably common among participants 50 to 90 years old who have not been diagnosed with dementia or any other cognitive disorder. More than 85 percent of these individuals have below normal resting diastolic blood pressure, while 42 participants with below normal blood pressure have so far tested in the "below normal" cognitive function range. Even subjects with diastolic blood pressures well above the 60 millimeters of mercury threshold cannot support normal cognitive function when upright, and basically any resting diastolic blood pressure below normal signals that cognitive performance in older adults is substantially reduced. These findings are consistent with earlier studies on adverse influences of low blood pressure on cognitive function, even in young adults. Low diastolic pressure is mostly due to low cardiac output, and earlier research showed the soleus muscles play a crucial role in maintaining normal blood pressure during sedentary periods.

A study in the Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine found people with dementia who take antipsychotics were more likely to spend time in the hospital than non-takers, reports Being Patient . The investigators examined the use of risperidone and quetiapine over the course of two years. Users spent an average 11 additional days in the hospital versus non-users. "Previous studies have not investigated the risk of hospitalization among persons with Alzheimer's disease AD nor the accumulation of hospital days associated with antipsychotic use, although antipsychotics are commonly used in this group," the researchers noted. Persons with dementia who used antipsychotics were in the hospital for an average of about 52 days, compared to 35 days for those who were not using the drugs. Hospitalizations among those using antipsychotics were caused primarily by mental and behavioral symptoms related to dementia, along with respiratory, circulatory, and infectious ailments. The authors stressed the importance of taking precautions when using or prescribing antipsychotics for people with dementia, given past concerns of adverse events. "These findings indicate the necessity for careful and regular monitoring of antipsychotic use to assess the response and decrease the risk of adverse events," the researchers concluded.

Banner University Medical Center is the only accredited geriatric emergency department (ED) in Arizona, reports Cronkite News . "We know that older adults when they come into the ED, they have more complications," says Banner's Nimit Agarwal. "And there was a need for improving the care . . . when they come to the emergency department." The accreditation process, run by the American College of Emergency Physicians, was launched in November 2018 with the Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation Program. "One of our biggest initiatives in the emergency department is fall prevention in older adults," Agarwal notes. This requires an interdisciplinary strategy, using specialized nurses as well as a pharmacist who looks at subjects' medications, since polypharmacy is a problem in older adults. "We have the physicians who get training every month on what geriatrics focused care could be," Agarwal adds. Banner's geriatric ED includes six "age-friendly rooms" that feature hearing devices and magnifiers for people with hearing or vision impairments, for example.

A study in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology found regular exercise to be beneficial for everyone with cardiovascular disease irrespective of age, reports Medical Xpress . Persons deriving the most benefit from cardiac rehabilitation were those who began with the greatest physical impairment. A total of 733 subjects completed a 25-session cardiac rehabilitation program in three cohorts — less than 65 years old, between 65 and 80, and 80 or older. After the cardiovascular intervention, all participants experienced improvements. "A few weeks of exercise training not only significantly improved exercise capacity, but also decreased anxiety and depression," said the University of Burgundy Franche-Comté's Gaëlle Deley. Participants younger than 65 who were anxious before rehabilitation had the most benefit, as did depressed participants older than 65. "A strength of this work is the examination of changes in psychosocial well-being during cardiac rehabilitation — an understudied outcome that is often highly valued by beneficiaries," noted University of Calgary Professor James A. Stone. "The work of Deley et al. may help inform strategies to augment the effects of rehabilitation, reach more people with a greater likelihood of achieving clinical benefit, and derive improved outcomes from higher value healthcare."

A study in Neurology suggests a slight modification to memory test scoring could help spot early-stage Alzheimer's in women, reports NBC News . The adjustment would account for women's lifelong advantage in verbal memory performance, and enable researchers to detect more women with the Alzheimer's precursor, amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). The same verbal ability that allows women to score higher on memory tests helps them offset Alzheimer's damage to the brain longer, but the University of California, San Diego's Erin Sundermann notes this "may actually put women at a disadvantage when it comes to diagnosing Alzheimer's at an early stage. If we just adjust the criteria to be sex specific to account for this female advantage, our results suggest it would improve diagnostic accuracy in both women and men." Going by the previous criteria means 10 percent of men would be wrongly identified as having aMCI, but the adjustment would place them in the normal category — while another 10 percent of women would be added to the aMCI category. Sundermann said early diagnosis gives women more time to plan for future worsening of symptoms, and an opportunity to change their lifestyle to decelerate the disease's progress.

A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found a new healthcare strategy focusing decision-making on older adults' health goals and care preferences can reduce undesirable and unhelpful treatment, reports YaleNews . Yale University researchers and collaborators at New York University and Baylor College of Medicine developed an approach defining both older adults' health priorities in terms of specific goals — like improving fatigue to be able to garden and walk one-half mile daily — and the care they are willing and able to accept to realize these goals. Yale's Mary Tinetti said priorities-driven care is valuable because seniors with multiple ailments vary in their health outcome goals and the care they are able and willing to do. The investigators observed the approach's impact on specific treatment outcomes, including health decision-making, perceived burden of treatments, medications, self-care tasks, diagnostic tests, referrals, and procedures. Individuals who received this healthcare scheme perceived their healthcare to be less burdensome, and were more likely to have stopped certain medications, and less likely to have diagnostic tests and tasks related to their healthcare than those who received typical care. "In this population, with multiple different conditions and health outcomes that matter to them, one of the most effective approaches to optimizing care is to align their care with outcomes that matter to them," Tinetti said.

Companies like CirrusMD offer chat diagnosis, in which doctors remotely connect with and treat care recipients by text messaging, reports the Associated Press . Such services typically cover injuries or minor illnesses normally managed by a doctor's office or clinic. Their business is expanding due to a campaign to improve care access, keep people healthy, and limit costly visits to the emergency room. However, some physicians are concerned about the quality of care provided by such services, given that doctors do not see recipients, and might have a limited medical history to consider before planning treatment. "If the business opportunity is huge, there's a risk that that caution is pushed aside," said Thomas Bledsoe with the American College of Physicians. Message-based care providers claim they take measures to ensure safety, and recommend in-person doctor visits when necessary. They also say a comprehensive medical history is not always essential, while doctors do not always require vital signs like temperature and blood pressure, but can coach recipients through taking them if necessary. Physicians also can elect to hold video or phone conversations when needed.