Companies have options to avoid employee stagnation, including offering stretch assignments, reports the Harvard Business Review . Examples include exercises in which workers have to rehearse board report speeches repeatedly. If employees' current level of skill is high but not growing, managers can suggest a move to a new assignment, new team, or a new project or client. Managers also should be direct and sympathetic as they communicate employees' successes and growth, noting they have simply outgrown their current position. Experts on teams whose growth has stagnated should be offered an assignment that really stretches them, or be encouraged to move on. Managers should use these sessions to express their appreciation and encouragement.

A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found care coordination appears to have the biggest impact on the improved health of older adults with multiple chronic diseases, reports EurekAlert . The researchers conducted a systematic review of all studies on the topic published between 1990 and 2017, including 25 studies with 12,579 older adults. Care coordination strategies have the greatest potential of improving health in seniors with multiple chronic diseases. In one example, care coordination entailing case management, self-management, and education of recipients and providers significantly mitigated symptoms of depression in adults with combined depression and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or in those with combined diabetes and heart disease. "Our study highlights the lack of interventions specifically focused on managing co-existing chronic illnesses in older adults, especially those that appear in clusters, such as diabetes, depression, heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease," says the University of Toronto's Monika Kastner. "Depression is common in those with diabetes and, because each can be a risk factor for the other, self-care and taking medications correctly can be challenging for improved health." The researchers note clinical guidelines usually concentrate on a single disease, so management of multimorbidity can be overwhelming for recipients and difficult for providers due to the complexity of overlapping or conflicting treatments with potential negative interactions. They suggest interventions to manage multiple chronic diseases should not only focus on clinical aspects of care, but also consider recipients' health priorities and goals and their social and emotional well-being.

The Near East Side to Champion Intergenerational Enrichment and Education Center in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the country's first places offering day services for children and older adults, reports the Columbus Dispatch . Champion is an alliance between Columbus Early Learning Centers, a nonprofit education provider for children six months to five years old; National Church Residences, a nonprofit group that offers senior housing and services; and Ohio State University. One side of the center resembles a senior community, with tables, health exam rooms, and dice games, while the other side is similar to a preschool, with a playground, classroom, and hallways covered with art projects. Spanning between them is a multipurpose room with a stage and a kitchen. Programs that combine generations boast many benefits, according to a study from Ohio State, the Eisner Foundation, and Generations United. Seniors experience better physical and mental health, while younger participants learn more, develop better socially, and gain more positive perceptions of older adults. Ohio State's Elizabeth Speidel says no interactions are forced upon the groups.

The buildup of earwax causes hearing problems for more than 30 percent of seniors, with 2017 guidelines for removal of impacted earwax from the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation noting up to 66 percent of people in nursing communities may have this condition, according to Kaiser Health News . Payment records analysis showed federal Medicare recipients logged nearly 1.7 million earwax removal services at a cost of more than $51 million in 2016. "It seems like such a basic thing, but it's one of the most common reasons people present for hearing-related problems," says Seattle otolaryngologist Seth Schwartz. The problem was so bad that Janie York of Omaha, Neb., founded Hear Now mobile hearing solutions, which cleans hearing aids and checks the ears of seniors in residential care communities. Julie Brown at SilverRidge Assisted Living in Gretna, Neb., notes impacted earwax can be a particular problem for people with dementia. Exacerbated hearing loss can hinder communication and worsen aggression and other difficult behaviors. A 2014 study by Japanese researchers revealed significant improvements in hearing and cognitive performance in seniors with memory disorders when impacted earwax was removed.

A two-year study is focusing on caregivers and participants with dementia who agree to monthly tests to determine how music can improve mood, mental functioning, and psychological measures in participants, reports CBC News . "When you have dementia, it becomes even more important to have an activity in which you participate. You become part of a community," says University of Victoria Professor Debra Sheets. "It's not about therapy, it's about maintaining an identity and a sense of who you are. Where you're not treated as someone who's got dementia." The study is underwritten by the Alzheimer's Society Research Society and the Pacific Alzheimer's Research Foundation. Sheets is collaborating with a team that includes colleagues from the university's departments of psychology, sociology, and the school of music. The project involves caregivers and persons with dementia participating in a choir, as well as high school students from St. Andrew's Regional High School and Pacific Christian School in Victoria. According to Sheets, both caregivers and people with dementia in the choir showed some improvement in their ability to recall words from a list. "The neat thing about music is it taps into a part of your brain that's often not touched as much by dementia," she notes.

The Sunflower Foundation recently awarded a $200,000 grant to the Center for Practical Bioethics to develop and recommend research-based strategies for detecting, addressing, and preventing senior abuse in Kansas, reports Health Affairs . The state's efforts have stressed effective adult protective services and sufficient law enforcement response. Prosecutors at every level are providing visible leadership and prosecuting senior abuse cases in urban and rural areas, and the attorney general is working to improve state law and understands the value of public education. However, prosecution always happens too late, and citizens must urge professionals of all types to look for abuse, identify people at risk, and respond. Some responses require notifying adult protective services, and community professionals can themselves address victim or caregiver depression, isolation of seniors, recognition of cognitive or physical impairment, and planning for safety. There also must be more service options and more funding, especially for those services targeted to people at highest risk for abuse or neglect. Scientists can further the senior abuse field by studying problems and practical solutions. Funding priorities for government agencies and the private sector should concentrate on prevention by better targeting risk.

According to CNNMoney , Starbucks is testing a program that will allow some employees to spend half of their workweek at a local nonprofit. With the help of Points of Light, a nonprofit volunteering group, Starbucks picked 36 Starbucks Service Fellows in 13 cities for the pilot program. For six months, the fellows will spend no less than 20 hours a week working for Starbucks and up to 20 hours per week at a local nonprofit organization that aligns with Starbucks' philanthropic priorities. These include supporting refugees, veterans, and military families and youth, along with eliminating hunger and protecting the environment. Virginia Tenpenny, vice president of Global Social Impact at Starbucks, said the coffee retailer sees the program as a way to keep employees happy.

A study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found more than 6 percent of seniors are administered antipsychotic medications (APMs) following heart surgery, with use of potentially harmful off-brand drugs especially pronounced, reports Cardiovascular Business . The researchers calculated that almost 10,000 such individuals are prescribed APMs annually to mitigate the delirium that often follows cardiac surgery. However, there is no proof supporting APMs as effective for treating delirium, and some studies warn the drugs can be hazardous. The researchers reviewed data from subjects 65 years and older who had underwent either coronary artery bypass surgery, heart valve surgery, or both at one of more than 700 hospitals between 2004 and 2014. Analysis found seniors were typically given APMs for about five days, with 15.5 percent of the study pool having received them for more than seven. Slightly more than 6 percent of all subjects reported having been given APMs after cardiac surgery, with haloperidol the most commonly prescribed "typical" APM. Use of off-brand APMs, especially quetiapine, seems to be on the rise. The researchers say this is troubling, "particularly in light of recent guidelines highlighting the lack of consistent evidence of the benefit of APMs for delirium and their potential harm."

A study published in Age & Ageing suggests diets high in vitamins are less likely to cause older adults to become frail than those who lack such diets, reports Reuters . The researchers analyzed data on 1,643 adults aged 65 and older who were not frail, of whom 5.4 percent developed frailty 3.5 years later. Individuals whose diets had the lowest amounts of vitamin B6 at the start of the study were 2.8 times more likely to develop frailty by the study's conclusion than participants who consumed the most foods rich in vitamin B6. Those who had the lowest levels of vitamin E were 2.3 times more likely to develop frailty than peers whose diets contained the most foods rich in vitamin E. Furthermore, subjects who got the lowest levels of vitamin C at the start of the study were 93 percent more likely to develop frailty than subjects who consumed the most foods rich in vitamin C. In comparison to nonfrail individuals, people who developed frailty were more likely to be female, older, less educated, and obese. They also spent more time watching TV and had a higher incidence of chronic health problems, including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Although higher consumption of every vitamin factored into the study was tied to a reduced risk of frailty, the connection was too small to rule out the possibility it was due to chance for all vitamins but vitamin B6, vitamin E, and vitamin C.

A study published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society details an "autobiographical memory" test administered to 35 healthy adults, about half of whom carry the gene variant APOE e4 that significantly raises the odds of developing Alzheimer's disease, reports ScienceDaily . "The hope is that in the near future we will have drugs and other treatments that could potentially slow down, stop, and even reverse some of these brain changes that we think are the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease," says University of Arizona Professor Matthew Grilli. "The problem is that if we can't detect who has these hallmarks early enough, these treatments may not be fully effective, if at all." Participants were asked to recall recent memories, childhood memories, and early adulthood memories. Participants with the genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's, as a group, described memories with much less detail than those without it. "From this study, we can't identify one person and say for sure this person is in the preclinical phase of Alzheimer's disease," Grilli says. "That's the next stage of work that we need to do. But we know that as a group there probably are more people in the e4 carrier group that are in the preclinical phase of Alzheimer's disease, and we think this is why they had a harder time generating these memories."