Rich Buchanan, 78, former mayor of Bloomington, Ill., deals with Alzheimer's with his wife Judy at his side, while also engaging in daily physical and mental exercises and taking medication to try to slow the disease's progression, reports Pantagraph . Buchanan also has received physical, occupational, and speech therapy and continues to see a counselor and neurologist. In addition, he keeps in contact with family and close friends. The Buchanans regularly look at a scrapbook that Judy made for Rich. The photographs, newspaper articles, and programs help recall memories and generate conversation. "Rich is in the stage now where he wants to talk about the future," Judy said. "What's it going to be like a year from now? I try to focus our conversations and attention to right now rather than the future because I don't have those answers. That helps to reduce anxiety. We try to focus on things we enjoy together rather than what we have lost."

An international study published in the Journal of the American Association of Retired Persons examined how food affects brain health for people 50 years and older, and diet's impact on the risk of dementia, reports the Jerusalem Post . Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and elsewhere found blueberries, healthful fats, nuts, and fish can help prevent dementia, as can beans and legumes, fruits, low-calorie dairy products such as yogurt, chicken, and whole-grain cereals. Fried foods, sugary foods, processed foods, red meat, fat, cheese, and salt were demonstrated as dementia promoters. The study was conducted in collaboration with numerous countries, including the United States, China, Switzerland, and Australia. It examined the scientific basis of preserving brain health and preventing dementia in old age.

Some Chinese insurers are building high-end retirement communities to deal with the rapid aging of China's population, reports the Wall Street Journal . So far, the insurers have spent more than $10 billion building these communities, according to the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. The developments are mainly targeted at affluent individuals, who must purchase a term-life insurance policy with a minimum single premium of $300,000, payable upfront or in yearly installments over a decade. Furthermore, community residents pay monthly service fees of about $2,000. China's National Bureau of Statistics says in 2014 the country's insurance regulator started actively encouraging insurers to pursue such developments, a year before the nation's working-age population experienced a record decline of 4.87 million people to 911 million workers. The China Insurance Regulatory Commission notes the developments are a way "to increase the supply of resources to take care of the old, and ensure the joint development of insurance and aged-care industries." Some analysts calculate that occupancy rates start at about 30 percent in the first year but can increase quickly in major cities to 90 percent or more. Meanwhile, several insurers also have spent money on U.S. senior housing assets to obtain management expertise and earn investment returns.

A sticking point for employers, educators, and policymakers is transferring employees' current skills into digital-savvy talents and quickly preparing them for new career opportunities, reports the Wall Street Journal . A key problem is employers still adhere to an old mindset about whom to hire as companies fill job descriptions with unnecessary requirements and are narrow-minded about the labor pools they can draw from. One Colorado workforce-development program, Skillful, is set up to help employers get more creative about filling job openings. The Skillful State Network is now expanding to 19 more states, led by bipartisan governors who want to help retrain employees for a technology-fueled economy and develop pathways into middle-class jobs for workers who lack college degrees. Long-term, local, or regional collaborations tend to be the most successful projects, says Jack Mills with the Insight Center for Community Economic Development. It remains uncertain how persistent these efforts might be. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce's Anthony Carnevale notes such programs get a lot of commitment and investment when employers are in dire straits and looking for solutions, but their enthusiasm often declines in a soft economy.

A study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine says an experimental treatment has completely reversed Alzheimer's disease in mice by slowly inhibiting the levels of the enzyme BACE1 in their brains, reports Newsweek . The team says the deletion of the protein either prevented or reversed the formation of amyloid plaques. The researchers noted lowering BACE1 levels not only prevented Alzheimer's in mice, but also reversed the disorder in animals who had already begun to show symptoms. Offspring of the original BACE1 reduction mice also experienced a similar reduction in their BACE1 levels, but they lacked the initial protection from the disease and eventually began to form brain plaques. However, as the second generation continued to age, they lost BACE1 activity. By the study's conclusion, this generation exhibited no plaques at all in their brain. Although these results are promising, Dr. Richard Isaacson with New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine's Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic says it is premature to assume the treatment would be effective in humans. "The completely other side of the coin is that 99 percent of all clinical drug trials for Alzheimer's disease have failed, and we don't know why," he notes. "Maybe amyloid plaque buildups isn't the right target."

A study published in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences found higher levels of lifestyle physical activity correlate with more gray matter in the brains of older adults, reports EurekAlert . "More gray matter is associated with better cognitive function, while decreases in gray matter are associated with Alzheimer's disease and other related dementias," says Shannon Halloway from the Rush University College of Nursing. "A healthy lifestyle, such as participating in lifestyle physical activity, is beneficial for brain health, and may help lessen gray matter atrophy." The researchers gauged levels of lifestyle physical activity by 262 older adults. Participants wore an accelerometer continuously for seven to 10 days to measure the frequency, duration, and intensity of their activities over that period. The average participant age was 81, compared with 70 for other studies used as a reference. The team compared gray matter volumes as seen in participants' magnetic resonance imaging scans with readings from the accelerometers and other data, Analysis uncovered an association between participants' actual physical activity and gray matter volumes remaining after further controlling for age, gender, education levels, body mass index, and symptoms of depression. "Our daily lifestyle physical activities are supportive of brain health, and adults of all ages should continue to try and increase lifestyle physical activity to gain these benefits," Halloway notes. "Moving forward, our goal is to develop and test behavioral interventions that focus on lifestyle physical activity for older adults at increased risk for cognitive decline due to cardiovascular disease."

A study published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology did not associate long-term proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use with cognitive decline in middle-aged and older individuals, reports MedPage Today . "Neither baseline cognitive scores of more than 7,800 middle-aged and older Danish twins, nor follow-up data on more than 4,000 of these twins, indicated that use of this class of drugs was correlated to cognitive decline," the researchers note. "These findings were supported by results of within-pairs analyses of twins discordant for cognitive scores (baseline) or cognitive decline (follow-up)." A total of 7.4 percent of all adults in Demark used PPIs in 2014, and 262 twins in one study and 299 of twins in a second study had used PPI in the two-year period prior to baseline. Pre-baseline PPI use was associated with a higher prevalence of comorbidities, and a more frequent use of non-PPI medications, suggesting a worse general health background status versus twins with no PPI use in the two-year period. Aging twins with the highest pre-baseline PPI use had higher adjusted scores than non-users, and the cumulative PPI dose within two years before baseline participation did not influence the attained composite cognitive scores in either cohort.

The Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Wednesday released the projected national health expenditures for 2017-2026. National health expenditure growth is expected to average 5.5 percent annually over the next decade. Growth in national health spending is projected to be faster than projected growth in gross domestic product (GDP) by 1.0 percentage point over 2017-2026. As a result, the report projects the health share of GDP to rise from 17.9 percent in 2016 to 19.7 percent by 2026. The report also found that by 2026, federal, state, and local governments are projected to finance 47 percent of national health spending, up from 45 percent in 2016. Among the major sectors of health care, spending growth is projected to be fastest for prescription drugs, averaging 6.3 percent for 2017-2026. This is due in part to faster projected drug price growth, particularly by the end of the period, influenced by trends in relatively costlier specialty drugs.

The nonprofit Thrive Center in Louisville, Ky., which opened last November, highlights state-of-the-art technology and provides education to improve the quality of life and care for seniors, reports HealthTech . The center has interactive technology exhibits, event spaces, and conference rooms, and offers a collaborative and learning environment for tech companies, senior care providers, academic researchers, and the public, says CEO Sheri Rose. "We want to be a hub of innovation focused on aging care and bring in senior care providers who are looking to adopt the technology, but also seniors who are ultimately impacted by the technology innovation," she notes. The Thrive Center is underwritten by more than $2 million, including grants from both local and state government organizations, and in-kind contributions from tech companies and Louisville-based senior and home care companies. Examples of technology available at the center include Samsung digital displays, a video wall that shows educational content, tablets, virtual reality headsets, and wearables. The Thrive Center hosts more than 12 interactive experiences, and will focus on different themes every eight to 12 months. The center opted to initially concentrate on memory care and dementia, given that the population of Americans with Alzheimer's disease is expected to explode from about 5 million now to 14 million by 2050. "It's like a museum," Rose says. "We have to stay relevant. One day, I want someone to say, 'I've been to the Thrive Center,' and I'll say, 'You saw it when it was about memory. Have you seen it now with the latest theme and new technology.'"

Fitbit announced on Feb. 13 that it is acquiring Twine Health, a Boston-based startup that helps people manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, reports Axios . The merger is expected to close in the first quarter, and financial terms remain undisclosed. Twine CEO John Moore will assume the position of Fitbit medical director. Fitbit has been increasingly concentrated on the health sector as an area of growth, working to demonstrate its devices can monitor and improve health. The company has been promoting its devices to insurance providers and is looking to the Twine deal to boost the credibility of its case. Fitbit has been working with the Food and Drug Administration to ease regulatory approval for health technologies.