A six-month national pilot program announced by the Labor Department will allow employers who have violated minimum-wage and overtime statutes to voluntarily disclose those infractions to the federal government and avoid civil penalties, reports the Wall Street Journal . The program seeks to encourage employers to audit their records to look for potential violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, with violators having to pay workers the wages they are owed to skip fines and possibly avoid lawsuits. "If an employer comes forward and says 'I made a mistake,' we should make it simple to pay up," said Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta at a congressional hearing. He also said the pilot "will help ensure employees receive back wages they are owed, faster," as employees would be paid shortly after violations are found, and not have to wait for the results of department probes or litigation. The Department of Labor noted if employees accept the payment of back wages, they would waive their right to sue their employer for the specific violation. The department wants to use the pilot to assess the amount of wages due and administer payment to employees, without requiring payment of additional damages or civil monetary fines when employers proactively address the compensation practices that caused the infractions. "It's a get out of jail free card for employers," warns the National Employment Law Project's Judy Conti, who calls the pilot an attempt by the Trump administration to "stack the deck in favor of employers."

A study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found the estimated medical costs attributable to both fatal and nonfatal falls in older American adults in 2015 was about $50 billion, reports Medical-News . Medicare paid approximately $28.9 billion, Medicaid $8.7 billion, and private and other payers $12 billion for nonfatal falls in adults aged 65 and older, while overall medical spending for fatal falls was $754 million. "Preventive strategies that reduce falls among older adults could lead to a substantial reduction in healthcare spending," say the researchers.

Washington state in September rolled out several pilot initiatives for the Family Caregiver Support Program, including the Tailored Support for Older Adults program and Medicaid Alternative Care, with services bundled around unpaid caregivers, reports the Spokesman-Review . Seniors who do not have unpaid caregivers also might be eligible for limited tailored support. Tailored support beneficiaries usually have too many assets to qualify for Medicaid, and the program is designed to help people avoid or postpone impoverishment and the need for traditional Medicaid-funded services. Both programs offer a monthly maximum of $550 in free services to support unpaid caregivers helping someone at least 55 years of age. Care recipients must require assistance with some daily-living tasks such as bathing, walking, and medications. The programs' service rely on individual needs and can include caregiver training and support groups, respite care, equipment such as a shower bench, and supplies. The programs also are designed to help seniors remain independent longer in their homes, to avoid or delay more expensive Medicaid long-term care. "It's really around, how do you support families and them taking care of one another," says Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington Executive Director Lynn Kimball. "So often, families end up in situations where there isn't much support out there and caregiving can be extremely stressful." Bea Rector with Washington state's Department of Social and Health Services notes the pilot is bringing in about $180 million in federal funds to evaluate the programs until the end of 2021.

The Administration for Community Living (ACL) on March 19, 2018, will host Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Stakeholder Day and a brown bag lunch during Brain Injury Awareness Day on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on March 20. TBI Stakeholder Day offers opportunities for TBI community members to hear and talk important TBI-related issues with other stakeholders, persons with brain injuries, family members, caregivers, and state and federal representatives. Brain Injury Awareness Day is hosted by the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, co-chaired by Reps. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-N.J.) and Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.). RSVPs for TBI Stakeholder Day and the brown bag lunch can be submitted here .

A brief from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College details Medicaid's benefits for older Americans. For one thing, Medicaid gives low-income retirees important health benefits by offering insurance directly, covering Medicare costs, or paying for long-term care. In addition, the recent expansion of Medicaid has helped lower the uninsured rate among employees nearing retirement. Meanwhile, the necessity for this spectrum of Medicaid benefits will increase as the U.S. population gets older and the growth rate of medical expenses continues to overtake that of household incomes. However, older Americans form only a small segment of the Medicaid-eligible population, so their future is dependent on the outcome of the broader debate over the program's size and scope.

Sources say the Trump administration is seeking to undercut the mission of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with budget reductions and a proposed agency restructuring, reports Government Executive . Proposals from NLRB officials appointed by Trump would aim to centralize regional functions and downgrade regional employees' investigatory authority as they attempt to settle cases involving workforce representation and unfair labor practices. The board also plans to drastically trim its budget and workforce, and has imposed a hiring freeze. Employee advocates have told their leaders that these actions are demoralizing workers, and justifications of raising efficiency could conceal the actual intention of hobbling the NRLB. "Ultimately, whatever case-handling efficiency steps are adopted, they must be consistent with the mission of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which established the NLRB," said the committee of regional directors in a letter to NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb. "Adopting measures that result in efficient resolution of cases but contravenes the mission of the act is a hollow accomplishment." In addition, the NLRB Professional Association has warned the hiring freeze and other mandates would make the agency "significantly less effective" in fulfilling its mission and could undermine the will of Congress. "These cuts will have lasting, detrimental impacts that cannot be easily dispelled when the agency's funding is finalized," the group contends. "Indeed, as indicated, management will not even assure employees that it will restore the cuts if the agency is funded at its current level."

Major employers ranging from Unilever to Dunkin Donuts to IBM to the Boston Red Sox are using artificial intelligence (AI) to measure job candidates' facial expressions during video interviews, reports Inc.com . The technology's benefits include enabling candidates to be interviewed whenever they want, and for recruiters to review those interviews when they want as well. More workforce diversity also is a purported advantage, for AI-based face measurement has significantly increased the number of colleges Unilever hires from for entry-level positions; this is important since major employers with a limited number of recruiters tend to send them to the most elite schools. Among the method's pitfalls is the possibility of facial analysis during interviews unsettling candidates and making them self-conscious. Another is the malleable moods of people becoming a factor in job screening, whether their feelings during an interview reflect their actual attitudes toward the job they are applying for or not. Still, face measurement could be very useful for companies, especially those that want to hire a lot of people rapidly and make their employee makeup more diverse.

A study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine by researchers from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and Cleveland State University measured the association between an employee's number of paid sick leave days and the use of preventive healthcare services, reports ScienceDaily . The investigators determined it takes a minimum of 10 or more paid sick leave days to significantly raise the chances that American workers get a flu shot, check their cholesterol and blood pressure, and get a fasting blood sugar test to check for diabetes. Female workers require at least six to nine paid sick leave days to see significantly higher odds of getting a mammogram. Generally, there was 26 percent to 85 percent growth in preventive healthcare use among those with at least 10 or more paid sick leave days versus those with zero to two paid sick leave days. Female-focused preventive services showed a 55 percent increase in the use of preventive mammography. Also uncovered was a disconnect between the number of days usually offered to American employees and the number of days where changes in preventive healthcare use were observed. "It took 10 or more days — more days than are mandated in any of the local U.S. paid sick leave laws — for us to see statistically significant increases in the likelihood of reporting having received a flu vaccination, mammography, and screenings for blood sugar and blood pressure," says FAU Professor LeaAnne DeRigne. "For policymakers who want to increase preventive healthcare services use in this age group, a longer and more generous paid sick leave plan of at least 10 days should be considered."

A study by University of Alberta researchers published in the International Journal of Medical Informatics found fall detection devices used by seniors may be less effective than purported, and require more extensive investigation and testing outside lab settings, reports EurekAlert . Falls are responsible for 85 percent of hospitalizations for older adults in Canada, and 20 percent of seniors will die within a year after experiencing a serious fall. The researchers analyzed 118 peer-reviewed studies focusing on the development and assessment of fall detection devices. Ten types of monitors were noted, including wearable devices and in-home sensors. "Most of the studies didn't describe whether the technologies were ready for use in the real world," says University of Alberta Professor Lili Liu. The review also uncovered gaps in feedback from actual device users. Only three studies investigated user acceptance, and none concentrated on their preferences, leaving fall detection technology research out of step with the World Health Organization's recommendation to address seniors' wants. One study indicated that 80 percent of older adults were hesitant to push the button on their devices after a fall, either because they had problems activating it or because they did not want to disturb a caregiver. Moreover, 90 percent of the reviewed studies failed to include any input from professional or family caregivers. In addition, 80 percent of the studies did not address technology costs, while 15 percent mentioned it without specifying a cost.

A study published in Nature Neuroscience characterizes the epigenomic landscape of brains with Alzheimer's disease (AD), specifically in the lateral temporal lobe, reports Medical Xpress . These AD brains were compared to those in both younger and older cognitively normal controls. Changes to the way the H4K16ac protein is altered along the genome in disease versus normal aging brains may indicate sites for future drug development. Because such changes shape how genes are expressed, the location and amount of epigenetic alterations is known as the "epigenetic landscape." The comparison of younger, older, and AD brain tissue uncovered a specific class of H4K16ac modifications in AD compared to normal age-established changes in the brain. This finding intimates that certain normal aging changes in the epigenome may shield against AD and when these go wrong, a person may become predisposed to AD. "Specifically it appears that AD is not simply an advanced state of normal aging, but rather dysregulated aging that may induce disease-specific changes to the structure of chromatin — the combination of histone proteins and DNA," says the University of Pennsylvania's Raffaella Nativio. The expression of amyloid plaques and tangles occurs very late in AD development, and epigenome alterations might transpire much earlier and represent targets to attack with medications.