KFVS 12 reports that Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine is about to roll out to more people 70 or older in Kentucky's Caldwell, Crittenden, Livingston, and Lyon counties starting today. The distribution sites will include the Lee S. Jones Convention Center and local health departments. Pennyrile Health Educator Grace Donaldson said the inoculation is a first-come, first-served process. "Please be patient," she said. "There are going to be a lot of people, we anticipate it being super busy . . . so stay in your car. We will come to you. We will be there with a smile and get you vaccinated." Donaldson added that Trigg County also intends to distribute the vaccine at least one local clinic beginning Thursday.

The Alzheimer's Association is hosting various virtual education courses on subjects ranging from dementia care to healthy living, reports KFVS-TV 12 . Alzheimer's Association Programs Manager Jeremy Koerber said the courses specifically focus on physical activity, nutrition, socialization, and cognitive exercise. "What we know is that the individuals that are doing these things, they are aging well, they are reducing for things such as heart disease, reducing risk for diabetes, and some forms of cancers," he explained. "But now we know that what's good for the body is what is good for the brain." Other areas of concentration include getting enough sleep and quitting smoking. "We want to take action with our smart exercise plan," Koerber said.

University of Southern California Professor Jiu-Chiuan Chen writes in the Chicago Sun-Times that his team's latest research indicates that older women who reside in locations with high levels of air pollution suffered memory loss and Alzheimer's-like brain contraction. He says these and other findings suggest that reducing human exposure to PM2.5 or soot can help avoid this risk factor for dementia. "We have been investigating whether PM2.5 may accelerate the brain's aging processes at the preclinical stage — the 'silent' phase of the disease before any symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias appear," Chen explains. Older women's likelihood of developing clinically significant cognitive impairment nearly doubled if they had lived in places with outdoor PM2.5 levels exceeding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's standard. The latest work monitored 712 women, average age 78, who did not have dementia at the start of the study and who had magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans five years apart. Subjects were more likely to exhibit brain shrinkage similar to that seen in patients with Alzheimer's. Comparing the MRIs of older women from locations with high levels of PM2.5 to those with low levels showed a 24 percent higher dementia risk over five years. "Because the silent phase of dementia is thought to start decades before the manifestation of symptoms, findings from our recent studies raise concerns that air pollution exposures during mid to early life may be equally or even more important than late-life exposure," Chen warns.

About 70 drugmakers raised prices in the United States on Jan. 1, 2021, by an average of 3.3 percent, reveals a study cited by the Wall Street Journal and conducted by Rx Savings Solutions, which sells software to employers and health plans. This figure includes changes to different doses for the same drug, indicated the analysis, which noted that inflation registered at 1.2 percent for the most recent 12 months. The largest price increase was at 31 percent for U.K.-based Advanz Pharma's hypertension product Dutoprol. The drug is a branded combination of two lower-cost generic medicines. New York-based Pfizer raised the prices on many of its products by 5 percent or less, including breast-cancer treatment Ibrance, rheumatoid arthritis therapy Xeljanz, and pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar, according to the analysis. Meanwhile, during the third quarter of 2020, net prices fell 2.3 percent versus a 4.7 percent drop in 2019, according to analysts at SSR Health LLC.

The Boston Herald says Massachusetts residents 75 and older will be able to get COVID-19 vaccines earlier than expected after the state raised their priority level to the top of phase two. This means some 175,000 residents will get immunized sooner in a move that more closely aligns the state's three-phase vaccine distribution with federal guidelines. Massachusetts is presently proceeding through the first phase of its plan, with first responders next on the list to receive doses. State Gov. Charlie Baker said about 287,000 doses of the vaccine had been distributed to hospitals and providers statewide as of Monday, with about 116,000 administered. State health officials also announced the launch a new interactive data dashboard that supplies coronavirus data, trends, and statistics in a searchable format. The COVID-19 dashboard will provide much of the same data already disclosed in daily and weekly Department of Public Health reports, while also offering a breakdown of daily coronavirus cases, testing, hospitalizations, and deaths along with averages and trends.

VTDigger says the state of Vermont will prioritize senior residents for COVID-19 vaccination over frontline workers. The federal vaccine advisory group's recommendations call for the next round of doses to go to both essential workers and older Americans. However, Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine claimed that the federal guidance was overly ambitious, while the state's is more realistic and will ultimately prevent the most vulnerable residents from dying of COVID. He emphasized that "essential workers" could constitute up to 85 percent of Vermont's workforce, while even frontline workers account for a "huge number of people." Levine said Vermont is "trying to balance the science and the data . . . about who's been most adversely impacted by this virus, and a clear priority from the top down to save lives." Vergennes Union High School teacher Angela Burke Kunkel questions this policy, saying "I don't understand how the state can prioritize keeping schools open, yet not prioritize vaccinating teachers." Anne Sosin at the Dartmouth Center for Global Health Equity said the debate over who should be prioritized for inoculation is going on across the United States. "It will be really important to ensure that that population that's most exposed is prioritized in the next phases of vaccination," she explained.

A study from the Retirement Equity Lab at the New School in New York determined that for the first time in 50 years, older adults are enduring higher unemployment than mid-career employees, reports Florida Today . During the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, workers 55 and older were 17 percent more likely to lose their jobs than those just a few years younger, while 2.9 million workers 55 to 70 left the workforce — with 2.4 million of them losing jobs between March and June. Moreover, unemployed older adults have been rehired at a slower rate and are continuing to lose jobs faster, while older workers lacking college education face higher rates of job loss. "High and persistent unemployment, compounded by the health risks of COVID-19, threatens the retirement security of a generation of older workers," warned Retirement Equity Lab Director Teresa Ghilarducci. "Given the wait for a vaccine and persisting layoffs, this trend is likely to continue, leaving near-retirees at risk of lifelong decreases in their living standards." Senior Floridians faced with this dilemma are turning to resources like CareerSource Brevard for guidance. It has a curriculum for job seekers 50 and older that customizes strategies.

Barron's reports that seniors isolated during the pandemic can stay physically fit with basic weight training. Strength coach Mark Rippetoe and Mary Edwards at Cooper Aerobics in Dallas recommend that seniors focus on total body exercises like deadlifts, overhead presses, and power cleans. A regimen that loads the hips and spine especially helps seniors avoid osteoporosis and retain muscle mass, while lifting a barbell while standing also improves balance. Rippetoe notes that people can expect to lose about 10 percent of their strength for each decade after their 30s, and weight lifting can slow, but not stop, that decline. If only a barbell is available, Rippetoe recommends alternating two basic workouts — a sole deadlift, which builds strength in the entire body, particularly hips and back; and overhead presses and power cleans or power snatches. Edwards, meanwhile, advises alternating between workouts like a combination front squat-deadlift-overhead press, lunges-barbell rows-floor presses, and power cleans. Because a plateau will inevitably be reached when exercising with barbells only, Rippetoe says "if you're going to keep training at home, eventually you'll need a squat rack."

A national study shows that certain factors can help identify older Americans who are at highest risk of falling victim to financial scams, according to the Marketplace Morning Report . Physical and mental health, and the health of relationships, are key predictors of older persons' self-reported feelings of personal financial vulnerability. "We're seeing a lot of relationship strain as people get older due to finances," said Wayne State University's Peter Lichtenberg. "And also just their psychological vulnerability around finances: anxiety, depression, memory problems." Separate research determined that a financial exploitation survey evaluating one's financial decision-making can help indicate how susceptible one might be to various scams. The poll formulated from these findings is freely available on Lichtenberg's website. The site offers helpful resources in addition to the survey, as well as one-on-one coaching to help them remedy their financial problems.

A study published in the Journals of Gerontology, Series A suggests nature therapy can mitigate age-related decline of the immune system, reports PsyPost . The researchers explored Horticultural Therapy (HT), an approach that combines the mental health benefits associated with nature activities with the physical benefits of breathing cleaner air and exercise. They assigned 59 Singaporean adults between 61 and 77 to either receive a six-month HT intervention or to be on a waiting list. The therapy cohort participated in 15 hour-long sessions at first weekly, then monthly. Sessions included a mix of indoor horticulture, park visits, and outdoor gardening, with blood samples collected at baseline, three months into the intervention, and six months in. HT was associated with lower T-cell exhaustion, a telltale of the aging immune system. HT group participants also exhibited reduced inflammaging, which is a "chronic state of low-grade inflammation" that occurs in older adults and is believed to contribute to disease. "HT has already been institutionalized in some hospitals to reinforce mental fortitude in cancer patients and our findings suggest that by lowering the expression of exhaustion markers, HT may also be beneficial in promoting T cell anti-tumor surveillance in older adults," the researchers concluded.