Eli Lilly and Company this year launched a clinical trial for the first treatment designed to benefit patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD), reports Medical Xpress . The University at Buffalo (UB) in New York is among 72 U.S. sites recruiting participants for this 12-week, randomized, placebo-controlled drug trial. PDD symptoms include a tendency to sleep for long periods at a time, sometimes 14 to 16 hours a day. "Sleeping so much can cause persons to lose muscle mass, becoming more frail and more prone to infection," says UB Professor Kinga Szigeti. "Changes in the nervous system can lead to an unhealthy drop in blood pressure, and persons become more prone to falls." The benefit of the new drug, LY3154207, is its novel mechanism of action on dopamine, the brain chemical that Parkinson's rapidly depletes. The oral drug is designed to maximize the brain's response to the remaining dopamine and enhance cognition, motor function, and wakefulness.

The Alzheimer's Association on Tuesday released a report finding that less than 50 percent of primary care doctors routinely test patients 65 and older for problems with memory and thinking. Only 16 percent of older patients surveyed say they receive regular cognitive assessments during routine health checkups, according to National Public Radio . "This cognitive assessment should be part of every senior's annual wellness visit," says Keith Fargo, director of scientific programs and outreach for the Alzheimer's Association. "But we're seeing that it's simply not happening." Medicare has made a cognitive evaluation a required part of annual wellness visits, but because doctors often skip the evaluation, many seniors are diagnosed only when they are severely impaired, Fargo says. Many doctors remain hesitant to broach the subject of cognitive testing with their older patients, says Joanne Pike, chief program officer of the Alzheimer's Association. "Usually what we're seeing is that physicians are waiting for the older adult to bring any concerns to them," Pike says.

Senior men and women are especially prone to underhydration and dehydration if they don't drink enough water, a new UCLA School of Nursing study cited by the UCLA Newsroom shows. According to the research, these conditions are likely to be under-recognized, bringing on health problems that range from frequent falls to urinary tract infections. Dehydration accounted for a 5 percent increase in preventable emergency room visits between 2008 and 2012, and adults older than 65 have the highest hospital admission rates for dehydration, according to Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality data. However, one big obstacle in determining hydration status among seniors is the lack of a "gold standard" method for measuring hydration. The study, published in the journal SAGE Open Nursing , involved taking urine samples from more than 50 adults at two senior centers and one adult day care center in Los Angeles twice a day, one day a week, over a three-week time span. By measuring salivary osmolality, Janet Mentes, professor of nursing at UCLA, and her team found that senior participants overall had higher osmolality (indicating greater dehydration) than younger adults. Osmolality also was higher among seniors with limited mobility. Salivary osmolality compares the ratio of water to certain chemicals naturally in saliva. It can be measured using a device known as an osmometer.

According to the most recent Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurship, the share of entrepreneurs age 55 to 64 has increased from 15 percent of new entrepreneurs in 1996 to 26 percent in 2016 — the latest year for which figures are available. Older men and women considering starting a business have several advantages over their younger counterparts, notes Forbes contributor Derek Lidow. Older adults project experience and prudence and are less likely to be mistaken about external factors like financing, customer expectations, and risk-taking. Having big-organization experience is excellent preparation for leading an enterprise through the later stages of growth. That is when reliable and repeatable processes, administrative efficiency, astute talent management, and operating at scale count for far more than so-called rugged individualism. Those are the stages at which many first-time entrepreneurs fail, precisely because they lack such general management skills. Because older adults have been around longer, the network of people they can call on is typically much broader, deeper, and more diverse than the connections many young people have. What keeps many successful entrepreneurs going through the long hours, relentless demands, and constant stress of getting a new business off the ground is a primal fear of failure. This fear is often more acute in older would-be entrepreneurs who have enjoyed great success in business or other organizations. Having so rarely experienced failure in their careers, they inordinately fear it on the alien ground of entrepreneurship. But it's a fear that drives them forward.

A study conducted by North Carolina State University researchers concluded that one way to convince senior men and women to pay attention to important health information is to preface it with the good news about their health, reports ScienceDaily . "There's a lot of research showing that older adults prefer positive information, often avoiding or ignoring negative information," says Tom Hess, a professor of psychology at the university and co-author of a paper on the new findings. "That can have consequences for older adults, particularly when it comes to information regarding their health. We wanted to see if there was a way to overcome this positivity bias when it comes to health news." Study participants who completed a "positive" health checklist read more than 50 percent more of the articles that had negative headlines, as compared to participants who completed the "negative" checklist. "These findings have practical value in terms of how we share negative information with older adults regarding their health," Hess says. "For example, it may be useful for a health care provider to say 'here's what looks good' before talking to someone about recommendations regarding diet or exercise."

EurekAlert cites a new Community Dentistry & Oral Epidemiology study , which found that poor cognitive function in older adults was associated with poorer oral health and higher risk of tooth loss later in life. The study included more than 4,400 U.K.-based adults aged 50 or older whose cognitive function was assessed in 2002-2003. In 2014-15, those same participants reported their general oral health status and the number of teeth they had remaining. Researchers note there was a clear gradient association between cognitive function and tooth loss when cognitive function score was categorized into quintiles. People in the lowest quintile reflecting poorer cognitive function had a 39 percent higher chance of tooth loss than those ranking in the highest quintile. "Our study suggested a close link between cognitive function and oral health in older adults," comments senior author Dr. Jianhua Wu of the University of Leeds. "The findings indicate that an improvement in cognitive function could potentially improve oral health and reduce the risk of tooth loss in the aging population."

According to a newly released survey conducted in January that polled over 800 eHealth customers, 70 percent of adults aged 55 to 64 cite affordability as one of the primary reasons they buy a short-term health plan, reports Becker's Hospital Review . The online health insurance platform found older Americans were more likely than younger members to select short-term health plans for this reason. For instance, 88 percent of men and women aged 55 to 64 said they value affordable monthly premiums more than comprehensive coverage versus 78 percent of adults aged 18 to 24. Young adults, however, were more likely to pick short-term health plans for temporary coverage needs.

The National Poll on Healthy Aging , conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, finds that one in four older adults say they feel isolated from other people at least some of the time. One in three, meanwhile, say they lack regular companionship. The feeling is more likely in people with health problems, reports WebMD . "Feeling lonely is an extremely common experience for people," says Dr. Erica Solway, a social science researcher at the University of Michigan who helped direct the survey of 2,000 adults ages 50 to 80. People who said they had fair or poor physical health, mental health, or hearing loss were more likely to report feeling isolated or lacking companions. Meanwhile, people who said they ate healthy diets, exercised, got enough sleep, or did not use tobacco were less likely to report feelings of loneliness. "More than a quarter of poll respondents said they only had social contact once a week, or less, with family members they don't live with, or with friends and neighbors," notes Erica Solway.

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from researchers at Abbott and the Ohio State University found that more than one-third of adults over 50 years old are not getting the daily recommended amount of protein they need, according to AgWeb.com . "Despite the protein craze in America, the data shows there's still a big gap in adults' protein intake," says Christopher Taylor, associate professor at Ohio State and study author. The report, published in the Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging , says overall diet quality among adults aged 51 years and older needs improvement. Current recommendations suggest the average healthy adult eat 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight or 0.36 grams per day for every pound they weigh. That's about 56 grams for men and 46 for women. But some experts recommend getting almost twice that amount as you age, especially if you're recovering from surgery, battling an illness, or are malnourished. "As people get older, their bodies begin to slow down their ability to break down foods and absorb nutrients," observes research scientist Jacqueline Boff. "That's why making sure adults are eating regular meals with 25-30 grams of protein and that are well-balanced can make a big impact on living a healthier, more active life."

Reuters cites a new study in reporting that adults who quit smoking decades ago may have a lower risk of rheumatoid arthritis than those who gave up cigarettes more recently. According to senior study author Dr. Jeffrey Sparks of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, "these results provide evidence for those at increased rheumatoid arthritis risk to quit smoking since this may delay or even prevent the onset of rheumatoid arthritis." Rheumatoid arthritis is an immune disorder that causes pain and debilitating swelling in the joints. Sparks and his colleagues examined nearly four decades of data on more than 230,000 women, including over 1,500 who developed rheumatoid arthritis. Compared to females who never smoked, current smokers were 47 percent more likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis, the research team reports in Arthritis Care and Research .