The midterms underscored aging issues such as keeping the Affordable Care Act (ACA), considering Medicare for All proposals, and reducing prescription drug costs, reports Next Avenue . The outcomes strengthened the prospects for the last item. Meanwhile, CNN exit polls focused on demographics estimated that 48 percent of voters 65 and older and 49 percent of those 45 to 64 identified themselves as Democrats, while 50 percent of both groups called themselves Republicans. "By contrast, in the 2014 midterms, 41 percent of House of Representative voters 65+ and 45 percent of those 45 to 64 were Democrats," writes columnist Bob Blancato. Medicare's progress thanks to the ACA will likely continue, and House Democrats may use their new majority to build more support for Medicare for All. However, the reinstatement of the "pay as you go" rule, which mandates offsetting revenue losses with spending cuts, in the next federal fiscal year could cause sequestration to revive. The result? Across-the-board budget cuts for federal programs and agencies, Blancato warns. Addressing high prescription drug prices will be a top priority for Democrats, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stated on Wednesday.

With millennials representing an increasingly large portion of the workforce amid baby boomer retirements, organizations are looking to technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to help bridge information gaps, reports CMS Wire . Millennials' digital savvy means the move to a younger workforce could potentially benefit any organization. Yet 41 percent of millennials plan leave their current job in the next two years, according to the Job Application Center. This turnover means critical business information and context will likely get lost, especially because baby boomers have a deep understanding of process, context, and nuance, supplying productivity, organizational intelligence, intellectual capital, and institutional memory that cannot be easily passed on to younger, less experienced workers. To help address such disconnects, AI can ensure productivity with logic application, as well as fill in missing contextual understanding by taking appropriate actions specific to each document. Most importantly, AI can extract meaning from unstructured data, a capability that is particularly useful for new hires who are qualified to do their job but still lack the context to do it effectively.

Australian researchers have announced a project to develop an inner ear drug delivery system to help repair hearing loss, reports Xinhua . The Bionics Institute said the method would load neurotrophin protein drugs in tiny nanoengineered particles to reach the inner ear areas at safe and effective levels. According to investigators, the current initiative will focus on characterizing how the drugs disperse within the inner ear via the nano particles accurately, helping to provide key data for clinical analyses. The next few steps will be made toward "developing the first therapeutic approach to restore hearing," said lead researcher and Bionics Institute Professor Andrew Wise. The Institute noted noise-induced hearing loss affects workers in sectors ranging from construction, mining, and manufacturing to transport and entertainment, where exposure to loud noise happens every day.

A study published in Frontiers in Neuroscience details how drinking dark roast coffee may protect against Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . The researchers examined light roast, dark roast, and decaffeinated dark roast coffee. They conducted experiments that showed the effects of a group of compounds known as phenylindanes, which form when roasting coffee beans and give coffee its bitter flavor. The phenylindanes inhibited the clumping of two protein fragments often found in people with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Roasting triggers higher quantities of phenylindanes, so dark roasted coffee appears to be more protective than light roasted coffee. The Krembil Brain Institute's Donald Weaver says although it is uncertain how beneficial these compounds are, the research clearly shows "that there are indeed components within coffee that are beneficial to warding off cognitive decline. It's interesting but are we suggesting that coffee is a cure? Absolutely not."

Scientists noted a synthetic form of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) administered for six weeks to mice engineered to develop Alzheimer's-like symptoms appeared to mitigate the symptoms, reports NPR . The treated mice performed as well as healthy mice on a memory test. In addition, the treated mice lost fewer brain cells and their brains contained 20 percent less of the plaques associated with Alzheimer's. Although the implication is that "cannabis could be beneficial for Alzheimer's disease," Yvonne Bouter of the University Medical Center Goettingen said an identical experiment in healthy mice showed the specimens developed learning difficulties. The Scripps Research Institute's Michael Taffe advised practicing caution when considering prescribing cannabis for seniors. "You could have something that is detrimental, if this does not translate to humans, or the person did not have the disorder," he said.

Maine voters this week rejected a state-level proposal to create a universal home care program, reports Home Health Care News . The initiative would have delivered free, home-based care to adults over 65 and individuals with disabilities. This would require the taxation of high-income households, although critics have said others would have felt an impact, too. Almost 362,000 Mainers voted against the proposal in the midterms, with fewer than 215,000 residents supporting the initiative. The Maine Hospital Association objected to the proposal because of uncertainty regarding federal labor and health privacy laws, and its claim that any universal home care program should first go through the state Legislature.

Drug companies are lobbying Congress to roll back recently mandated medication discounts for U.S. seniors, and opponents warn the effort could potentially hike drug costs for Medicare enrollees, reports the Chicago Tribune . Medicare currently covers most drug costs until a beneficiary and their plan pay $3,750, and then the coverage drops and is not reinstated until the beneficiary's total out-of-pocket costs, including what pharmaceutical firms pay in discounts, total $5,000. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission says nearly 30 percent of seniors hit this threshold in 2014, and more are feeling the impact as costs climb for drugs to treat conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, and cancer. Drugmakers had been mandated to implement a 50 percent discount on their products once seniors hit the spending limit, and bipartisan legislation raised that discount to 70 percent. The drug industry argues this increase is excessive, and claimed that it supports seniors paying less for drugs, but not at companies' expense. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America wants insurers to pay a greater share of the cost, while senior advocates are against reducing the discounts. "This was a real win for Medicare beneficiaries," said AARP's Megan O'Reilly. "We need to protect that and not be rolling it back."

With small businesses facing major competition from bigger rivals during peak seasons, human-resources consultants are advising owners to follow inventive recruitment strategies, reports the Associated Press . Searches should focus outside of obvious areas like online job boards, and seek seniors and others who might be interested in temporary work. Business Training Works owner Kate Zabriskie says retirees can be an especially good source for small businesses to tap for seasonal help. "They might be interested in working in a small shop because they're different — they have a different vibe," she notes. The Navio Group's Carlos Castelan suggests small businesses should mull adopting some of the strategies used by the big companies, like offering workers signing bonuses. He also recommends giving seasonal workers the same benefits accorded to regular staffers, such as paid time off.

A study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine suggests chronic or frequent back pain may signal a higher risk for mortality in women 65 years and older, reports Consumer Affairs . "Our findings raise the question of whether better management of back pain across the lifespan could prevent disability, improve quality of life, and ultimately extend life," says Boston Medical Center's Eric Rosen. The researchers tracked more than 8,000 women older than 65 for 14 years, measuring daily back pain and their ability, or inability, to complete regular day-to-day tasks. Many subjects had difficulty making meals, walking short distances, or getting up and down from chairs, while others had problems walking above a certain speed, because of persistent back pain. All of these issues were found to eventually lead to increased mortality risks. Generally, almost 66 percent of older women with persistent or frequent back pain died during follow-up, versus 53 percent of women without back pain. The researchers calculated that back pain increases the risk for death among older women by 24 percent. The team remains uncertain as to the reason for this connection, although Rosen says while the pain "may directly impair daily activities ... older adults could inappropriately avoid them due to fear of re-injury or worsening of symptoms."

A study published in Radiology determined a new artificial intelligence (AI) system can predict Alzheimer's disease (AD) onset more than six years ahead with 100 percent accuracy, reports Radiology Business . The AI algorithm to predict the AD onset on a database of 2,109 independent fluorine 18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography studies logged in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative between 2005 and 2017. The program was trained using 90 percent of the dataset and tested on the remaining 10 percent. It was then tested on 40 scans that the algorithm was completely unfamiliar with, realizing 82 percent specificity and 100 percent sensitivity an average of 75.8 months, or 6.3 years, prior to a final AD diagnosis. "Furthermore, in predicting the final diagnosis of AD on the independent test set, it outperformed three radiology readers in the receiver operating characteristic space, with statistical significance," the researchers noted. "With further validation with larger and more diverse datasets, this algorithm may be able to augment radiologist reader performance and improve the prediction of AD diagnosis, providing an opportunity for early intervention."