USA Today reports that McDonald's is teaming up with AARP to hire older workers for its breakfast and lunch shifts. The fast-food giant will post job openings on AARP's online job board as it tries to fill nearly 250,000 jobs over the summer. In addition, McDonald's is working with the AARP Foundation to launch a pilot program in five states aimed at matching lower-income seniors with potential job opportunities. While this isn't the first time the fast-feeder has targeted senior workers, it does marks the company's first national effort to connect with a group that increasingly wants — and needs — to continue working into what were traditionally considered the retirement years. The jobs will include everything from cashier to shift manager. Older Americans rank as the fastest growing segment of the U.S. labor pool. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, adults 55 and older will comprise 24.8 percent of the private labor force by 2024.

A study published in Health Affairs warns more than half of middle-income Americans 75 or older will be unable to afford yearly assisted living rent or medical expenses within a decade, reports Kaiser Health News . The researchers calculated that the number of middle-income U.S. seniors will balloon from 7.9 million to 14.4 million by 2029, comprising 43 percent of the senior populace. More than half of this demographic will have annual financial resources of $60,000 or less by 2029, even if the equity in their homes is included. Forecasts put the average annual assisted living and medical expenses cost in 10 years at $62,000, which means many middle-income seniors then will not be able to afford assisted living. "The low-income cohort has been taken care of by tax subsidies, while the high-income cohort is largely self-sufficient," notes the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care's Beth Burnham Mace. "But the middle-income seniors have been ignored."

A study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes says the performance on a simple mobility test can best predict whether an older adult who has a heart attack will be rehospitalized, reports YaleNews . "Clinicians have often relied on their 'clinical intuition' to incorporate beneficiaries' functional impairments into prognosis," said Yale University Professor Sarwat Chaudhry. "Our model gives clinicians an objective risk model that they can use to incorporate information about functional impairments to judge risk for adverse outcomes after hospitalization for heart attack." The researchers assessed participants' mobility via the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test, which involves timing subjects as they stand up from a seated position and then walk 10 feet. They learned that participants who took more than 25 seconds on their TUG test were nearly twice as likely to be rehospitalized after a heart attack versus those who completed the test in less than 15 seconds. "Mobility impairment provides important prognostic information on top of the clinical indicators we've traditionally relied on," Chaudhry noted.

A company called care.coach has designed digital healthcare avatars resembling animals so staff can interact with seniors, reports WXYZ News . "Something that makes it really unique is that we actually have a live individual that is operating the dog or cat 24/7 so always available to interact with the individual," says care.coach's Kendra Seavey. The implication is whenever the avatar is awake — or the camera is turned on — a health advocate employed by care.coach sees and engages with the user. "Most of our participants have had a lost loved one or pet, and they kind of share that love with their animal and say things they might not want to share with us at the moment," says occupational therapist Cely Rosario at Boston's Element Care. "They share with their pet avatar and we're able to follow up." The avatars also can summon help if a senior has taken a fall or needs medical attention.

A study from the University of East Anglia (UEA) published in PNAS found a new mobile game can identify people at risk of Alzheimer's, reports Medical Xpress . The Sea Hero Quest game has players navigate mazes of islands and icebergs, with the scientists converting every 0.5 seconds of game play into data. The outcomes showed people with a genetic predisposition for developing Alzheimer's can be differentiated from those who are not on specific levels of the game. The team studied gaming data from 27,108 players between 50 and 75 years old and compared it to a smaller lab-based cohort of 60 people who underwent genetic testing. In that group, 31 volunteers carried the APOE4 gene, which is linked with Alzheimer's, while 29 people lacked it. "People with a high genetic risk, the APOE4 carriers, performed worse on spatial navigation tasks," said UEA Professor Michael Hornberger. "They took less efficient routes to checkpoint goals." In contrast, people lacking the APOE4 gene traveled about the same distance as those forming the baseline score, and this difference in performance was especially significant where the space to navigate was large and open. "It means that we can detect people who are at genetic risk of Alzheimer's based on how they play the game," Hornberger concluded.

A study published in Cell Reports localized a structure within the TDP-43 protein that is essential to its ability to induce nerve cell death in persons with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or frontotemporal dementia (FTD), reports Medical Xpress . This finding could help gain insights into designing a means to suppress this function. "By manipulating the structure of the protein, we determined that RNA binding is pivotal for maintaining the stability, function, and toxicity of TDP-43 in disease models," says University of Michigan Professor Sami Barmada. According to his team, too much TDP-43 destabilizes RNA, especially those involved in energy and protein production, and they identified an identical pattern in cells from persons with ALS. Their introduction of specific mutations to TDP-43 interrupted an interaction between two parts of the protein needed for RNA binding, generating non-RNA-binding variants. The team learned when TDP-43 cannot bind RNA it quickly degrades. Additional research demonstrated that modifying TDP-43 structure strips its ability to bind RNA and cause nerve cell death in models of ALS and FTD.

The annual survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) found as the U.S. economy strengthens and stocks approach record levels, retirees and workers' confidence in having enough money for retirement have risen over the past year to all-time highs, reports the Wall Street Journal . Eighty-two percent of surveyed retirees are optimistic about their ability to live comfortably in retirement, up from 75 percent last year. The figure closely matches levels posted in 2005 and 2017, and it is the highest since the survey began in 1990. Among those who are still employed, 67 percent are confident in their financial prospects during retirement, up from 64 percent last year. The current level is so close to the survey's peak of 69 percent in 1999 that it is statistically indistinguishable, according to EBRI's Craig Copeland. In addition, the percentage of workers who are very confident, 23 percent, is dramatically higher than the 17 percent measured in 2018.

Roll Call is reporting that proponents of a $15 minimum wage remain bullish about the prospects of the House of Representatives passing a bill to incrementally double the current $7.25 federal standard over five years. The Raise the Wage Act has emerged as a top priority for many House Democrats, with 205 members (203 who can vote on the floor) co-sponsoring Education and Labor Chairman Robert C. Scott's legislation to gradually phase out the tipped wage and institute a $15 federal minimum wage. However, a small number of Democrats are concerned that the five-year time span for doubling the existing minimum wage is too quick for some states or regions where the cost of living is lower. Rep. Terri A. Sewell (D-Ala.) has proposed a regional minimum wage that would set different schedules for hiking the federal standard based on costs of living in different geographic areas. For Scott and the House Democratic leadership to bring his bill to the floor, they will be targeting 22 undecided voting members. Only 11 of those 22 would need to back the bill on the floor for it to pass, assuming all 204 sponsors are present to vote "yes."

A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found nearly 55 percent of people older than 65 who start dialysis treatment die within a year, reports United Press International . When a person starts experiencing renal failure, dialysis cleanses their blood of toxins, but while some opt for the procedure as a transition to kidney transplantation, most persons on dialysis never receive a transplant. The researchers analyzed Medicare data from 1994 to 2014 for subjects older than 65. After starting dialysis, nearly 23 percent of subjects died in the first month, and almost 45 percent died within six months. These findings clash with earlier research, many from the U.S. Renal Data Registry, estimating a 30 percent mortality rate for older adults who just began dialysis. The registry only posts numbers for people healthy enough to receive dialysis outside a hospital, but almost 75 percent begin treatment inside of a hospital, and some do not survive to receive outpatient treatment.

The Glen Meadows Retirement Community in Baltimore County, Md., has partnered with a local farm to improve seniors' lives with visits in which they interact with horses, reports the Baltimore Sun . Notchcliff Farm houses 19 horses. Glen Meadows residents do not ride the horses, but feed and brush them, watch farriers change their horseshoes, and enjoy riding demonstrations by their owners. "Petting the horses and just interacting with them is similar to like working with service dogs or service cats," says Glen Meadows fitness director Jennifer Perkovich. Maryland Therapeutic Riding Program Director Kelly Rodgers adds that being around such animals can give senior visitors an emotional lift. "So many of our volunteers say it's therapeutic to them . . . being able to interact with the horses and learn from them — they teach us so many things," she notes. Horse-assisted therapies have been shown to help people with physical impairments and psychological conditions, including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse.